Famous Reporter # 40 - Dael Allison, 'Water-carrier cantabile'

DAEL ALLISON

Water-carrier cantabile

Barefoot on decomposing gravel

she descends the road’s uneven scale

composing her own libretta:

the base cleft of her arm

steadies the bucket on her head,

a faded sarong nips her waist

into a treble cleft,

hips sway a lyric.

Divas would abort an arpeggio

to take note of the score.

Each day the chore

of carrying a bucket

up the hill to where the earth sings

then balancing its weight

back down the broken road.

She is voluptuous with rhythm,

a fluid metronome

of bucket, spine and hips,

a cadence

of careless attention.

On her head

the water in the bucket

finds its level.

On her head

water sways

in a slow and steady dance.

Dale Allison is based near Taree NSW but works away, most recently in Darwin, and prior to that on humanitarian reconstruction in Indonesia. She won the 2007 Wildcare Tasmania International Nature Writing Prize and was co-judge this year. Her essays and poetry are published in Australian literary magazines.