Famous Reporter # 30 - poetry, Brendan Ryan: 'The Mountain' and 'Woman Leaving a Farm'

BRENDAN RYAN

[two poems]

The Mountain

In the pitch darkness of a dream

it is the type of shadow you can depend upon.

A conspicuous feature as seen from the headstones.

Visible from all angles

it towers over cypress plantations,

milkers following a trail of silage across a paddock.

I remember a ribbon of fire skirting the north-east ridge

and my disappointment the first time

I took in the view of Kelly’s paddocks.

Years latter, parts of my family were enveloped

in fog as we tramped upward

past cattle troughs, ferns and lichened rocks.

It was as if we had been finally accepted

by something we had been staring at

our whole lives. There was no view

we were stuck with the people we had become.

It is only in memory that I lose my place

and the mountain begins to rise up

like an image taking shape in water

shadowing me across paddocks

until it owns me, until I return

to finally see the mountain for what it is.

Woman Leaving a Farm

It’s not the beaten path that led

to the burner or hurrying in rubber boots

from the dairy to put the tea on.

Nor is it the stick she used

for heaving washing into the spin dryer.

It’s more the way the wind

filled the sheets on the clothes line

and then ushered in each night

blowing ash down the chimney.

Summer nights, walks after tea

two figures dwarfed by paddocks

walking down to the river

walking down through their children.

Her day, framed by washing clothes

a view of the tank stand beside the dairy.

*

Shivering, she wakes to wedding photos

and knick-knacks on the mantle piece –

all the objects she needs to belong

reminding her of who she has become.

A trophy house with strange trees,

neighbours so close they keep their blinds drawn.

The streets surrounding her are pocked with retired farmers’ wives

their weeks arranged like dinner settings.

She keeps her distance from the kitchen window

wondering what to do if he comes in

from the out-paddock and finds her

dabbing at crumbs on the kitchen table,

a habit religiously maintained over forty years

cannot locate her. Each day she loses hours

the way her mother lost words in a nursing home.

It’s not the women who used to pop in

for cups of tea, it’s not the farmhouse

and those days without hot water.

It’s more the woman he used to know

lost in the lounge room

somewhere between the paddocks and the TV.

Brendan Ryan lives in Portarlington. Why I Am Not a Farmer was published by Five Islands Press in 2000. He has had poems and essays published in a number of journals including Island, Heat and The Age.