Category Archives: Country

The Tree – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Taken in the State Forest at Kirrup, Jarrah saplings, blackened by fire.

“Ancient trees are precious. There is little else on earth that plays host to such a rich community of life within a single living organism.” Sir David Attenborough

The Tree

In you so much lives and finds its place,
black beetle hiding in bark's gap,
jumping spider sitting tight,
some tiny creature on my leg,
ants, as always, industrious
building a super highway along your roots,
diverting around scats,
gifts to feed your soul,
the wrens have found morsels in your folds,
ring-necks perch your boughs,
when the wind speaks you rustle an answer,
your gaps and folds,
your roots and boughs,
door, lounge and porch,
home for nearly everything
within your generous eaves.


Copyright 2023 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

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The Owner Builder – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Kim is hosting poetics with an invitation to consider animal architecture and write a poem that focusses on a creature building its home.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Animal Architecture

Photo: a Welcome Swallow’s nest under the aqueduct at Beringbooding Rock near Bonnie Rock, early spring 2008.

“It’s surely summer. for there’s a swallow.” Christina Rossetti

The Owner Builder

Like a freelance plasterer the
swallows gather at water's edge
to gouge the damp, sticky clay
a hundred times ten pellets by beak,
on the wing, 
thrust into a tiny aperture,
cup as house on the under-hang,
nothing slithers here,
no caw of raven comes threatening,
no one, no thing
ever negotiates this plane,
no storm or quake can dislodge
this palace of mud.


Copyright 2023 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 




Photo: same place, if you look carefully you will see the owner builder.

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Tomorrow Looking Back – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: the saturdaypaper.com.au

“If Helms is not protected for these birds, we’re going to end up losing the species.” Dee Patterson (Jamarri Rehab Centre & Rescue)

Tomorrow Looking Back

Back rooms, sheds, trunks,
places for future rediscovery of 
things past, things forgotten,
she wandered in with a feather
jet black with a red tip,
my eyes teared,
"What is this?" she asked.

I said,
"let me begin at the ending,
where it all began,
when you were little
we worshipped mining companies,
trusted our governments,
believed our corporate leaders,
listened to their lies,
repeated their rhetoric mantras,
we sat round fires,
sipped our wine,
laughed and made merry,
while the habitat disappeared,
the beautiful black cockatoos all died
leaving only traces,
feathers for the backroom,
a shrine to their memory."


Copyright 2023 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 


Note 1: In the Quote - Helms - refers to a forest block in Western Australia's south west, home to the three species of black cockatoo. Helms is only one block of state forest, there are dozens under threat across the southern half of the state.

Note 2: There are three species of black cockatoo in Western Australia: the Forest Red Tailed, Carnaby's (white tailed) and, Baudin's (white tailed). All three are endangered, Baudin's are on the critical list (estimated at only 4,000 in the wild). The decline rate is predicted to accelerate as further logging and land clearing continue and their food and water sources disappear.

Note 3: Causes of decline are - agricultural spraying, urban development, mining, increased number of bushfires, illegal shooting (by farmers, orchardists, vignerons), vehicle collision (the roads are a source of cereal grains at harvest time as the trucks are not sealed). 

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Connected – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Mish is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write commemorating a loved one.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Dia De Los Muertos

Photo: Newcarlbeon Rock near Koorda. Taken a few weeks back in early spring, a misty sunrise, a thin place for me.

“Heaven and earth, the Celtic saying goes, are only three feet apart, but in thin places that distance is even shorter.” Kerri Ni Dochartaigh

Connected

This is a thin time
where realms are unseparated,
a cure for the soul's myopia
long lost in binary spaces,
momentarily set free,
reminding that death is
not the death we imagine,
you are ever here,
the villain of my childhood
now redeemed in a hagiography,
saint as sinner, sinner as saint,
we are intertwined,
embodied,
connected.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

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Recentered – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Koorda Wildflower Reserve, the sun setting in the west.

“Find your center and stay there. It will allow you to live your life to its maximum.” Barbara Ann Kipfer

Recentered

When the heft is hard and the cost too high
I retreat to the wilding of the bush,
where the tracks are narrow,
no neon to light the scrub that 
rings the ageless lichened granite,
raw places of song-larks, echidnas,
goannas along the winter creeks who draw 
down the crisp morning air with a crackle,
and evening's dappled light amidst the trees
is such joy I forget myself and I am recentered 
once again.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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Perhaps It’s The Cypress After All – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse guest host Jo is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write about scent.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – A World of Common Scents

Photo: State Forest reserve in Kirup, Western Australia, forests have their own, very complex scents.

“She stood for a long time breathing in and breathing in, the scent of the trees ….” Margaret Atwood

Perhaps It's The Cypress After All

Cypress stirs my body memory,
so too the wattle blossom of winter,
ah, yes, the wet dog after rain at the
salted, seaweed strewn beach remains,
along with cinnamon toast on a cold 
night's mist, the sweat of love pulsing
my inarticulate flesh, simple scents, 
the easy embodiments of youth.

But what of the hidden things,
is there a scent for wisdom or
compassion, is there a scent for 
soul, for reflection? 

Perhaps it's the cypress after all.



Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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The Way Of Summer – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Merril is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write an ekphrastic poem using one or more of five paintings provided, I chose ‘Hip, Hip hurrah’ by Peder Severin Kroyer.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Sun, Sand, Storms, and Celebrations, Summer Ekphrastic

Painting: Peder Severin Kroyer – Hip, Hip, Hurrah

“In summer the song sings itself.” Wiliam Carlos Williams

The Way Of Summer

There's something the way a summer sun
warms a champagne afternoon and entertains
with celebrating dragonflies in louder boozy buzz,
while cicadas sing in unison as soft dandelion seeds 
ride the warm air so slowly as to be countable, 
and somehow the food and wine are more real, 
more vital than ever before, our eyes tell of 
meaning, of love, of healing, our stories passionate,
there's something about the way a gathering warms 
and opens the heart in a gentle intoxication of joy.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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Are We Listening? – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: from spring 2018, Leda Nature Reserve, Everlastings in full bloom. (One or two rains and the bush comes alive)

“The forest makes your heart gentle, You become one with it … No place for greed or anger there.” Pha Pachak

Are We Listening?

Do winds come to die, or the 
ocean exhaust itself upon the shore,
are trees silent before the storms of
humanity, does grass wither?
You might think it if you took no time 
to stop and listen, for trees speak in
silences and grass always regenerates,
while oceans shout in their return,
winds take time to rest and even the
soil speaks if we would but listen.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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Unspeakable – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Lisa is hosting the Quadrille (44 words)with an invitation to write a poem using some form of the word season.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Tis The Season

Photo: Early autumn in Deepdene, red gums shedding.

“Autumn is as joyful and sweet as an untimely end.” Remy de Gourmont

Unspeakable

The seeds of my tangled life are sown 
along the edge of autumn's invitation,
a propitiation for all that is yet to arise,
an imaginarium of coloured experiences
only the sense can speak, a whelming
of the darkened cave transcended in
spring's awaited consolation.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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There Is Always A Way – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: austockphoto.com.au

“If the stable gate is closed, climb the fence.” Julie Krone

There Is Always A Way

The gate was old, full of character,
but obstinate, refusing to budge
at even my firm handed push,
the gouge in the soil testimony 
to its sunken hinges, forcing me 
to lift it clear every time with a 
sigh acknowledging my own 
resistance to repairing it, partly
in knowing that all gates 
eventually sink, and knowing
that there is always a way 
around and not just through.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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