The Peace Outside of Time

THE PEACE OUTSIDE OF TIME


- for Kumanji, the late Darby Jampijimpi Ross


Ghostgums are aeon-dancers
In circles in curving lines
Among the now upended cars
Soak-swallows use as caves;

As out on the salt-pans
Wildflower mats are reeling
As hot wind will blow a big
Windmill to spinning turns.

*

There's a step by step
Taking this long dusk of being
There's a deep soakage well
The well-watered world
Doesn't know its longing for.

There's a hunger for the dryness
A yearning to sift the sand
Which satisfies the trickle
Of each moment, and a thirst for
The peace outside of time.

*

Barren hills are broken
Well weary, fallen down.
And bare rock dares to jig
Naked edges of the sky.

Gouged ridges are shaking
To empty on blankets of plains
Till the Wokapi (Rock Holes) of
Pure heart well up again.


August 1995, dictated to my daughter while driving out on the 300 klicks-long Tanami Track