Poem: A Bugle Ranges Suite
A noted part of South Australia’s Mount Lofty Ranges is the inspiration for this week’s Poet’s Corner contribution from Thom Sullivan.
A Bugle Ranges Suite
I. Morning landscape obscured by fog
Mornings on the southern side of the house:
a fence-line thrown up in the foreground
against a background of luminous fog
that contains the sounds of cattle. An apple core
tossed hard into the whiteness vanishes
before it thumps down in a parallel world.
We stand among it, breathing in its coldness.
II. Under the pines
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Night under the pines:
the darkness utter,
saturating. The pines wheeze,
even in the stillness.
A mopoke repeats
the same two notes
from somewhere
on the opposite hillside.
Its song a perfect iamb.
III. Highway gothic
Beyond the town-limits
you stop looking
for signs of the numinous
and the range
of the headlights changes.
You’re verging on a dream
of sleep, and what
begins as a stand
of wattle smouldering
at the roadside –
smouldering unconsumed –
ends with the landscape
burning.
Thom Sullivan is a writer, editor and reviewer of poetry. His debut book of poems, ‘Carte Blanche’, won the 2017–18 Noel Rowe Poetry Award and is available from Vagabond Press of Sydney. He was the selection judge for ‘New Poets 19’, the 2018 edition of the Friendly Street Poets three-poet series. More about Thom, his award and work in general can be found here and here.