Occasional poetry No.4
Pillars of Salt (excerpt)
We always look back,
attracted by that feeling
of having been there before – the roads
sinking, the soil weeping (scab on scab
lifted), fences sunk to gullies
catching the garbage of paddocks,
strainers blocked by stubble
and machinery and the rungs
of collapsed rainwater tanks / and maybe
the chimney and fireplace
of a corroded farmhouse, once
the guts of the storm, now
a salty trinket.
© 2003, John Kinsella
From: Peripheral Light: Selected and New Poems
Publisher: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle, 2003
ISBN: 1 86368362 3
Read the entire poem at http://australia.poetryinternationalweb.org/
Image from www.agric.wa.gov.au
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About Andrew.Rate
I have worked at UWA since 1995, coming from New Zealand to take an appointment as Lecturer in the Soil Science group in the former Faculty of Agriculture. I completed my PhD, from Lincoln University in New Zealand, in 1991. If you really want to find out about work stuff go
here. In real life I love my wife, daughter and guitar. Occasionally, I wish I had chosen a career as a carpenter, counsellor or poet.