Susan Wood Artworks: The Living Heart: Poems for Ernestine Hill

Susan Wood, The Living Heart: Poems for Ernestine Hill

Artist: Susan Wood

Artworks: The Living Heart: Poems for Ernestine Hill

Poet: Susan Wood
Title: The Living Heart: Poems for Ernestine Hill A suite of short poems

Poem:

After the sand,
a panorama.
Quartzite spear-heads, chipped stone treasures, she has a few of those. Vanquished,
she never noticed the silence.
She was running away.

The man in the shadow, a witness
He said
“life’s a lottery”.

A woman.
Always a wanderer, amused and curious. She could not tell her story.

Men
here and there.
Stories everywhere.
In the bush,
the traces of a woman. Shy,
sturdy,
a little wild.
Hoping for a future.

In that country,
in the great wide spaces, it was hot.
Out of sight, she travelled by instinct.
It was a difficult undertaking.
Spinifex,
beetles, wings and stings And there it is.
A good story
is treasured yet.

Deep in the heart
of the country,
hills of extraordinary form.

Nothing but stones, chalk white and terracotta
She dreams of comfort and culture

for just a night

She is every woman. Sometimes she sings, beautiful and expressive. Sometimes she cries

In the days of her youth, secrets,
desire.

No one will hear the story.
She will never tell

She roamed up and down.
She sat writing history. For one brief moment she was disturbed

An old story. Secrets, promise,
and the heart mostly ruins.

Susan Wood website