ANGELA ROCKEL

 

NOV 1994

 

WALLEAH PRESS

CURRAJAH

FAMOUS REPORTER



 
 
Harvest
 
Hay's cut; shining ridges
like ritual scars in moonlight.
I stretch out on heaps
that sweat lightly:
ground I'm on could
turn in its sleep.
 
Yellow houselights are
small and strange
in dark silver, out here
where night-creatures wait
to bring moonlight inside.
Windows are fretted with snailscript,
silverfish pool in shadows,
come to eat leavings;
paper, shed skin; enter
when lights go out.
 
Cut grass lies beautiful
under the moon.
Paper and skin turn to moondust,
smeared moth-wing, all lattice-work,
nibbled parchment.
 
Every harvest is end, beginning,
bright knife, healing wound.
 

Angela Rockel has been published in The Age, Island, Meanjin, Southerly and Southern Review. A forthcoming collection with Penguin Australia is scheduled for publication in February, 1995. Since 1979 she has been farming south of Hobart; 'I'm interested in connection with place, the strategic use of a personal voice, the exploration of non-dialectical experience, the use of language that is musically motivated.'