Grave' moves to Torres Strait, an area adjacent to the Western Province of ... there is speculation that their hide was the material the Exodus Tabernacle tent was.
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POEMS RICHARD DAVIS Anthropology and Sociology M255 University of Western Australia Crawley, WA 6009, Australia Ethno-poetic Statement: “My research takes place in remote parts of Australia with Torres Strait Islanders and Aborigines. While my research interests primarily focus on gender, creativity, and writing, my poetry explores issues of embodiment, encounter, and emplacement in fieldwork. The poem ‘Lost’ is my experience of being profoundly out of place around Paruku (Lake Gregory), a remote part of Central Australia, while on fieldwork with the Aboriginal people of the Mulan community. The poem ‘Coral Grave’ moves to Torres Strait, an area adjacent to the Western Province of Papua New Guinea and deals with being in place through visitation to, and care of, the dead in cemeteries there. When leaving an island for an important event or an anticipated long period, or arriving back after some time away, it is important to visit ancestors in the cemetery and communicate to them in an intimate way, much as would have occurred when they lived in the community. The poem ‘Sirenia Dugongidae’ focuses on dugongs, a mammal common to the seawaters of coastal northern Australia. Because of their observed social structure and group movement, Torres Strait Islanders sometimes express themselves through dugong inflected idioms. Dugongs also live in the Red Sea, and there is speculation that their hide was the material the Exodus Tabernacle tent was made out of. Perhaps only poetry allows for dugongs as sustenance and dwelling to be brought together in a meaningful way.”
Lost Before my being-thing dissolved, I was in my donga,1 bored, and before that I ate tinned sardines on crackers And the day before that I was with a group of men at the lake’s shore watching wobble-board cattle walk on shimmer water. Now, I don’t know where I am. I followed the same trail from yesterday Anthropology and Humanism, Vol. 39, Issue 2, pp 205–209, ISSN 1559-9167, online ISSN 1548-1409. © 2014 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/anhu.12058.
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Anthropology and Humanism
Volume 39, Number 2
to the fractal fringe but it had dissipated to elsewhere. Everywhere, growing is a tyranny. The grass goes on and on and with each gust of wind every sheath mimes the bend of the one nearest. The trees are no different, they know not to grow taller than their neighbor. The sun has stopped moving. Behind the tyres there is no depression. I walk this way then another and see nothing new. It arrives quickly. The panic. Casting me out and, strangely, possessing me. I huddle. A sudden inflation returns me and I am a nautilus shell walking spirally about the truck, mapping a galaxy onto the soil beneath me. Now I see the goal post tracks and drive past a lean-to, then giant anthills made of tottering cars. I struggle to breathe. Later, sitting on a step, I sip tea waiting for the shadows to move.
Notes 1. A transportable, single room dwelling commonly used in Aboriginal communities and remote mine sites.
Coral Grave The tenderest act I know is to wrap your arms around a headstone put your head to the silent granite and talk. “I haven’t visited you for a while I’ve been busy Sorry How are you are you resting well?
Davis
Poems
we are doing ok, we miss you though keep a look out for your grandson, he’s a good dancer like you spark his legs up, he needs to lead and put in a word for us, to God, we are leaving the island for a while.” Right the upturned vases put aside the faded plastic flowers, keep the bright ones and remind yourself to ask your sister to get more next she goes south Sweep the edges with a stiff dried-grass broom to make neat pleasing parallel lines and sprinkle crushed coral and sand across the surface carried from the graveyard pile to replace the bits harried away As you walk away, having tended your heart and his you carry the grave’s gift of a glorious, soaring, numbing ache.
Sirenia Dugongidae The underwater grass eater Most blessed of creatures Tents the tabernacle sacra In the taught of its skin So that The countenance of the Lord may swim Holy, holy, holy
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