‘Big River Country’ by Mike Vanderkelen

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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