A long shadow passes
over the garden. Yesterday
I buried the bones, feathers and skulls
of two magpies fallen
...
Letter IV: On Reality
We crossed the seaward field
with the air heavy against us,
...
The beginning of duration
The infinity of cells
The form of unknowing
The hopelessness of dropped article
...
Cento for Tom Lee
And finding nothing
you look back over your shoulder
happy lives, a lot of time
...
Cento for Beginners
The nasturtium is to itself already
a memory. It opens its leaves
...
Kate Fagan was born in 1973 and is a poet, editor and songwriter whose books include The Long Moment (Salt),Thought’s Kilometre (Tolling Elves), return to a new physics (Vagabond) and First Light (Giramondo) in 2012. She is a former editor of the US-based journal How2and stems from one of Australia’s preeminent folk music families, the Fagans. Her album Diamond Wheel won the National Folk Recording Award of the National Film and Sound Archive in 2006. She currently lectures in literary studies at the University of Western Sydney.)
Authentic Nature
A long shadow passes
over the garden. Yesterday
I buried the bones, feathers and skulls
of two magpies fallen
from a nest during storms,
each bundle like coal,
a plain music of repair.
Something about the gesture
troubles me. Authenticity
comes at a price it seems -
neo-con cons make truth a panacea
for ego while nature becomes
a cipher for speak-easy
consumption tactics.
When Celan met Heidegger
a silent forest began to grow,
apprehension flowering between
the mortal business of politics
and a star above the well.
Those who talk of genius
are those who most suspect it.
Some kind of transplanted integrity
has taken place, the words
and rhymes of older empires
fraying under eucalypts
and fruitless in a country
such as this. Here I dig
for a different language,
a new balm for the bruise
of lost opportunities
and a way to resolve a parallax
even as I recite the lessons
of an unlevelled meeting -
arnica, eyebright,
the obvious humidity.