Alice Springs

I was privileged to travel in central Australia recently, and was struck by the beauty and power of the land. It seems that where there is still a strong, living Indigenous connection to country, that place is somehow more alive and spiritually potent. The following is a poem I wrote after returning from the Centre.

Alice Springs

What is aridity?

Is it lack of water,
or its presence
flowing deeply under the surface?

Is it stark rocks
piled on parched spinifex hills,
or how their presence shapes
the stark spirit of place?

Is it light so bright
that it sears everything,
or its slow evening decline
revealing form in shades of darkness?

Is it sky, so unchanging perfect blue
that a single cloudy wisp is relief,
or uniformity shaping awareness
of eternity in All?

Is it mulga and ghost gum,
ironwood and cypress pine –
the strong who overcome –
or they who are one with the land
who crown its true glory?