The Pilliga poems

Lynne Hosking, President Armidale NPA

The Pilliga

What is special for me ?

Sunrise, soft light, from atop Salt Cave fire tower

Vast vista of sage cypress, stretching to nudge

Warrumbungles, Nandewar Ranges and

Ukerbarley awake.

A surprise ! Up close, a pair of courting butterflies !

Noontime harsh light, drowsy heat, birds quiet

Sandstone caverns, animals asleep…

Myriad nocturnal tracks patterning

Rivers of sand and ephemeral creeks.

Sunset, glowing pink Dandry Gorge

Shadowy, sculptures emerge mysteriously.

With memories we walk in magic light

Amidst Gamilaraay vibrancy.

Midnight, floating cradled by friend

Pilliga healing bore baths, soothed.

Gazing up in wonderment at a dark emu

Shadowed within a starry Southern Cross.

10th  August 2019


The Pilliga

What are my concerns?

Sunrise, fire tower view, will it still

Reveal Eric Roll’s Million Wild Acres,

Echo cries of Gomeroi hearts-breaking?

Are butterflies meeting and mating above

Forest canopy on towers and hilltops?

Noontime, cindered cypress droop

Ironbarks are a memory…

Lizard, bird, animal tracks fading

…Where are they sleeping?

Stygofauna and insect species gone

Before we’ve got to know them.

Sunset, see the gas field flares.

Day and night shadows gesticulating,

The forest fragmenting – new fences,

Roads, poisonous spills, gas wells,

And coal methane gas freely venting.

Midnight, Pilliga bore seeping, weeping…

Barely floating, vision blurred, the

Dark sky brightened-blighted

By an un-natural 24 hour glow.

Emu, up there  …

… Is your head bowed in sorrow ?

3rd August 2020

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