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The Tops
by lex Thursday, May 3 2018, 1:14am
international / poetry / post

the blue mountains
along the east coast of Oz
are aptly named as blue is their most prominent feature
tho they are not mountains
they are the remnants of a plateau
eroded by wind and water over millions of years
now presenting as mountains

it seems more practical to name them according to the dreamtime
of the originals, each feature, animal and contour
intertwined with perceptions of harmonious survival, native law
and the sacred, which has persisted here longer than any other
human society on earth, tho white invaders continue to commit genocide
on the few remaining, not with guns but with cultural annihilation

yet the dreaming persists as i sit on an outcrop
overlooking the great blue splendour, watching,
sensitive to the sacred and the life in the forests
breathing/moving in the valleys

the gang-gang parrot of the Tops is not included
in the sacred totems
yet it has become a symbol of the ranges for me
with its larrikin red-feathered crescent, smoky blue-grey plumage
and acute intelligence almost matching that of the white
humans of today that are removed from all things harmonious
and natural -- they continue to desecrate the land
unaware they are produced and sustained
by/through its Purity

i watch the setting light as it catches the red and yellow ochres of the cliffs
exposed and scarred by logging -- no photo or painting could ever hope to catch
the dancing lights and changing hues of the ranges that live in defiance of man’s
destructive ways

the tribals are long gone from these ranges,
the dislocated mixed bloods that remain
boozing themselves into extinction in white towns,
the price of forfeiting an ancient culture is death,
black and white remain polar opposites

it strikes me that Oz, the land, creates the myths and dreams
as it magically impinges on human consciousness
moving and contouring sensitive minds as it did
to the originals over thousands of years

and so the enduring blue of the mountains and every natural thing
that inhabits them continue, too large to be wounded by blind,
disconnected, and insensitive white men