My late cousin Greg Pullen played a major role in my discovery and love of the central plateau, such that I was inspired to write these words.
His recent departure, looking out over Shannon Lagoon, makes them more poignant.
Mike Vanderkelen
Big River Country
In that earlier time
They came
Up from the lowland
To warm in trawtha makuminya
From the shore of a smaller yingina
They stepped through kero bush and hakea
To rest on yellow paper daisy and purple orchid carpets
And quench on wayalinah
Cider gums die back
Fixed in death grey gnarled branches
Against low west blown snow clouds
In a highland dawn
I falter across dolerite blocks,
Scattered and ordered
Around a mist shrouded shoreline
Pick a path among the rocks, past wallaby thigh-bone,
Bleached
Tufts of wool on wire and cartridge cases, spent
To where doe and faun hide in a distant hakea clump
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