An Australian Peace

The Land Islands of Wannackladdin


Ephemeral see, daily vapor veils the cross-hatched old reedbeds
Layoring this striated imagine-ocean up measures of dream. Old names
Come in the mist, Ballaymarang and Garem Gam, Eumemmering
Is neighbouring, near to Gin Gin Been and Panty Gurn Gurn. And
West of Toomah by Torbin Urruck is Carrum Carrup, where
the lost land islands of Wannackladdin lie, and then lay down.

Behind all mediated waddings of curtain pasts, chinks to a seeing
reveal a pristine land, an ageless, longed-for welcome home
comes, where sleep goes. There the islands of Wannackladdin
Rise as the lost havens for our longing in this our own land.
Submerged under suburban from Mordialloc to Frankston, as
Gold leaf fallen from our crown in the autumn of our bloom,
Those lost beauties where our younger skin was shed.

The old maps show the early names, like an orphan’s father’s
Attention and trustworthiness, an orphan’s mother’s embrace.
Our shores rise out of these drained lands of hard despond…
Fences of impenetrable thickets morass up a veneer of streets
Where even the young grow leery with shame and cynicism
Like stranded people old before their time, in no place here,
Not now, or then, even lost from the islands of themselves.

There are no land islands anymore! And how is land at sea?
Land islands are a stupid idea to the rationalised dice of spun fact
And compromise! The land is for the subdivision, the lot! Cast
Your spirit from your life! Your soul is asked for in return for
Comfort and a living here, in the streets where that old map
Shows that the Land Islands of Wannackladden went down

Like first losers in the Anti-Olympian games.


© Wayne David Knoll Jan/Feb 2008