THIS IS A PLACE OF SIGNIFICANCE

This is a place of significance
None of us came here by chance.
What ancestral being passed this way?
What happened here on a Dreamtime day?

Did the spring explode from the Earth,
Gushing upwards for all its worth?
Was that the reason for ceremony?
For I know about a corroboree.

This is a place of significance
None of us came here by chance.
We followed the dusty Bourke and Hall Road
Across the causeway our tyre treads showed.

What song line played its way through here?
What Dreaming ancestor did appear?
Was it a snake whose mark we see?
Is that why there was a corroboree?

This is a place of significance
None of us came here by chance.
Have our tyre tracks caused you pain,
Opened up old wounds again?

Entrusted to treat this place with care
Our photos captured the beauty there
The faded lines beside the spring
A sharpening groove so the axe would ring.

This is a place of significance
None of us came here by chance.
Here the life force can be found
In the water’s constant sound.

© Jim Low

The Rollercoaster Ride

While at the museum
We sit in a car
A rollercoaster car.
Although the car
Stays where we are
In our minds we travel far.

***
Climbing slowly
Oh, so slowly
Up to the very top.
Then, over the rise
Just close your eyes
As down, down we drop.

Rattling tracks
And straining backs
Around the bends we fly.
High in the sky
Hear us scream and cry
Thank goodness I left that pie!

Where is my heart?
Has it come apart?
Is it high in the air?
No, I’m wrong
It’s still going strong
Was that my lunch back there?

When will it stop?
Not another drop!
We’re travelling way too fast!
“To the museum, please
Take me and Eloise
This ride will be our last!”

***
While at the museum
We sit in a car,
A rollercoaster car.
Although the car
Stays where we are
In our minds we travel far.

8 October 2008
© Jim Low