POETRY-WAITING OVER THE PAGE

I’ve always been attracted to poetry even though it doesn’t come easy to me. I know I should practise but I somehow become caught up in my stories and forget. During the times I remember and remind myself to try something can happen that makes me beam with happiness at what I create. The feeling is quite moving, very different and far more private than writing a story.

I realise that poetry shouldn’t be difficult so I began to take an interest in collecting and reading poetry books. Suddenly, I found I couldn’t live my life without the poetry books I love. As I could hardly exist without my battered copy of Gone with the Wind likewise I couldn’t live without my injured copy of The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. This wonderful poetry book has a padded, black stippled cover with gold lettering and  gold edged pages. It was tossed away some years ago and my husband rescued it and brought it home for me. Now, I read poetry with that feeling of anticipation about what’s waiting for me over the next page.
Today I’m sharing a special poem titled BUNYA MOUNTAINS by the experience poet and storyteller Susan Skowronski. After a visit to the Bunya Mountains earlier this year I can clearly visualise Susan’s words as she describes a world close to but somehow far away from the plains below.

BUNYA MOUNTAINS

Bunya Mountain picnic

A surfeit of greenness

lush grass and tall pines

cool damp moss

and swaying ferns.

Muted sounds

slow deep breaths of my sleepy companion

wingbeats of a currawong

distant twittering of lorikeets

and close by, a buzzing insect

poses no threat.

Fluffy cloud shadows

drift silently across

the patchwork of valley farmlands

temporary relief from the merciless sun.

As misty mountain rain

sweeps across my campsite

I breathe a prayer

for drought stricken families below.

© Susan Skowronski 2016

THE BUNYA MOUNTAINS – QUEENSLAND
Read more at  http://www.nprsr.qld.gov.au/parks/bunya-mountains/about.html

Rising abruptly from the surrounding plains, the cool peaks of the Bunya Mountains reach more than 1100 m and offer spectacular mountain scenery, views and abundant wildlife.

Bunya Mountains National Park (declared in 1908) is Queensland’s second oldest national park. It shelters the world’s largest stand of ancient bunya pines Araucaria bidwillii and more than thirty rare and threatened species.

The bunya pines tower over tall, moist rainforest along the range crest, while hoop pines dominate dry rainforest on lower slopes. Subtropical rainforest, once the most widespread rainforest community in Queensland, grows along the range crest and upper parts of the eastern side of the mountains. Semi-evergreen vine thickets and at least seven other types of dry rainforest grow on the lower or western slopes. The park’s forests shelter rare and threatened plants including orchids and small herbs. Natural grassland (locally known as ‘balds’) containing rare grass species are scattered across the mountains. The national park also protects open eucalypt forests, woodlands, brigalow scrub and the largest protected areas of vine thickets dominated by bottle trees in Australia.

The park is home to about 120 species of birds and many species of mammals, frogs and reptiles. Several rare and threatened animals live here including sooty owls, powerful owls, the black-breasted button quail, a skink species and a number of mammals. Birdlife is abundant, with brightly-coloured parrots being popular visitors to picnic areas.

Long revered by generations of Aboriginal people—travelling long distances every few years for feasts and celebrations coinciding with mass crops of bunya ‘nuts’—the Bunya Mountains are for all a worthy destination. Picnic and camping areas and more than 35 km of walking tracks make it a wonderful place at which to escape the heat, or the hustle and bustle of modern life.