Stuart's Way

STUART'S WAY

Going where
no whitefella had
gone before his
way seemed humble
even hesitant,
embracing retreats
and re-tries, trial
and error for
eliminating
mind-forged patterns
to find the country's own steps,
its paths.

A path known
as the most dangerous,
it was dry-armoured
in desert, well-armed
with missile and shot,
with sharp sun-fire
sniping starvation,
or cannons of thirst.

To step out
and off the map
into emptinessness
he had to try and fill
into otherness
he had to try to tell,
to routes not just lost,
but unheard of,
to ways harder
than where you thought to go;
for this was
all unknown
by his own
until he came.


But less so
with every step
Stuart took:
for he soaked
up field knowledge
of Aboriginal paths
and distance-goals
in Aboriginal legs;
or their edible plants
and sources of food
knowledge of soaks
and watersources -

Like Stuart
was sand
that soaked up
every drop
so Stuart learnt
till he knew
the soakage step by step
that was
the only way
through
the only way
to survive
out here.

Advancing
or retreating
so Stuarts way was
like the setting up
the careful bases for
the well-organisation of risks
in an Antarctic expedition
or, like the late earthquake-ruins
of a spoilt Mount Everest climb
which he then went back
and back to finish.

Or, more like
taking slow stages
in a Sun Tzu battle plan;
or the loss on loss of the clandestine
seven-year siege-plan that comes
out of the gradualised blue
to its win;
in fact, like the way
the Aborigines had discovered
to long survive
and thrive.

Stuart made
several ventures
across the inland
each one went
a little further
and he and his
men came back
from every one.

A most
remarkable feat
out here
and on foot!

Each successful trek
was one of retracing
each failure
one of retreating,
but always returning
to the pilgrim quest,
then going further on
till that pass
came to pass
in the passage

set out for
as if indomitable
or cosmically-backboned
in fortitude and courage
in rectitude without pride
in close rappore with
his men, who loved him
and followed him

so he could go
so he continued
and so discovered
the way, by following
his way
he eventually found
Stuart's way.

But returning
to bottled civilisation
with its inappreciations
and misundertandings
he'd hit the bottle
and drown in its bile
as if his steps went truer
far out of its maw,
as if he'd become more
like an Aboriginal;
and so for the toll
and the preciousness it cost
with the darkness
that fell his way.

Now (roughly)
The Stuart Highway
which the thousands
trek daily
many unwittingly
as teenagers to
the supports of home
or else unknowingly
as aliens in
a foreign land

like greenhorn,
glib followers
of a master
they take for granted
or despise,

though a few,
some do recognise
the great art
of the master
in alcoholic Stuart
of the desert
where his great thirst
was quenched
at least while he
was there.

Stuart was
pre-eminent!
A past master
in going the way.

I'd raise him
a glass
of desert-soak
sourced water.