My Land

  This is a free verse poem (no rhyme or meter,) which I wrote some weeks back and today entered into a competition. Wish me luck.

MY LAND

Sun-gilded ochre colours paint my land

Across its heart, across its wide expanse of

Uncharted grandeur, endless sand hills, and wide canyons,

No wonder it inspires this scope of indigenous art.

Aged reds and yellows, oranges – burnt and brown,

Secret caves – pitch black except for white hands across their walls –

A stretching land of sober colour bordered by sparkling salty blue,

By golden beaches hot underfoot but highly desired by the young and reckless.

Then surprisingly steep sides of giant mountains,

Indications of recent rain show you brilliant green verge

In little valleys, niches, patches like those in a patchwork quilt,

Lush and glistening, just to prove that it can.

Because wait a little while and lush juicy stems

Crackle underfoot from drought, and forests burn in fierce fires,

Black sentinels that used to be tree trunks

Stand as statues, reminders that our inheritance can be starkly harsh or calmly beautiful.

Here, in my little world, I see but I do not touch,

For I look at the painting – the painting that is nature’s mural;

And uninvited, uninvolved, I languish here

Because I must.