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Thylazine: The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature                                                                                                                                    #6/thyla6k-df AUSTRALIAN POETS SERIES 6 The Poetry of Diane Fahey Selected by Coral Hull [Above] Photo of Diane Fahey by Beverly Hall, 2000. I GARDEN AND SEA/New Year's Eve, 1986 I MOTHS I FROM THE CLIFFS I RED ADMIRALS IN SHROPSHIRE I SKY WRITING/Winter Solstice, 1988 I LATE SUMMER GARDEN I GARDEN AND SEA New Year's Eve, 1986 On this day, summer will open its hands. First, there is rain. The birds sing more freshly after it, building high cities of notes. Whole constellations of plums hover, or lie with gashed redness, stillborn paleness, on the earth. Magpies swoop through the trees - benign, close above our heads, as if we were rooted in this waiting, growing place. Later the waves rush, shining with olive darkness. I circle and flow into new spaces of coldness, new fathoms of blood. In warm cradles of sand we rest, stripped of old selves, till we are the children we tend - running in play towards a brimming horizon. Published in Turning the Hourglass (Dangaroo Press, 1990). MOTHS Soft, almost unseeing sentinels, they wait without purpose on walls, in cupboards, ready to be disembodied, like candle flames, by a finger-pinch. As cupped hands open to outer air, they fidget, cling - do they know how to be saved? Some prefer to grow brittle on curtains, silk fringes. Yet, multiplying as if by thought, they have their future strategies: pupae wreathed inside lids, buff wrigglers chiselling rice to webbed clumps. Most are radiantly nondescript, somewhere between a sheen and a colour; others, bark paintings: a geometric opulence. Tonight, one climbs the shadow of the lamp, flirts with the twisted gold nerve that draws dull mysteries to fulfilment. FROM THE CLIFFS A midwinter day, pulled between rain and sunburst. Gulls scream-circle a hunting kestrel - even in this wind, at that height, territorial. A flicker of red, once more it hovers with the calm poise of the contemplative or killer, then falls with a swift straightness no leaf in autumn ever traces. On the horizon, sun-rays slant from massed clouds, stream through columns of rain-haze till that far stretch of sea is shingled with light. High tide keeps walkers from the shore but lures in surfers; above marbling reefs of foam they stay their ground; for whole moments, unassailable, soaring like birds. Published in Turning the Hourglass (Dangaroo Press, 1990). RED ADMIRALS IN SHROPSHIRE Borne one after another into the high white room, the butterflies would keep me from writing poetry ... Flames rimmed with jet, they flicker against rafters, glass, as if flight could take their bodies anywhere. Some, tiring, raise wings under-patterned with bark. Once cupped, released, they sheer away with pent-up speed, one paired with another freed moments before, to trace a mutual tottering path through air with no glass veils, white cages ... By evening, room and hillside hold no sign of them; the last of summer is a balm resting on eyes and skin; my hands remember their dry flutterings Published in Mayflies in Amber (A&R/HarperCollins, 1993). SKY WRITING Winter Solstice, 1988 Someone has split this sunlit sky in half with a white streak that starts to fade soon after the irritating buzz that made it. Resoundingly, ocean writes on itself thick lines resolving into foam on jade - illumined cyphers in a dissolving script. On the shore I weave a path round stones smooth as amulets, each with its story layered in colour. As far as my eye can see, jellyfish gleam from dry sand - small moons sinking, hardening, becoming glass punctuation marks among scrawls of seaweed. Sealed off from this warm air, they lie exposed, unknowing, dying of light. Published in Turning the Hourglass (Dangaroo Press, 1990). LATE SUMMER GARDEN The butterflies make no sound, seem always to be travelling away from sight. Copper and alabaster keys, they have the freedom of the garden. One quivers like a nerve against my thumb's blue base, its wings ragged and veined, pressed like petals between clear leaves of air. What nectar has sustained that forthright orange, chameleon brown? A dust of pollen radiates from where the wings, almost unhinged, touch the body haloed in dark hair. The eyes of the wings have opened and closed a million times. Air quickens, drifts the butterfly down into grass sewn with yellowed leaves and buttercups - glossy, unfading suns. Above, the bright fluttering green of trees that have breathed and sung with all the strength of summer. Published in Mayflies in Amber (A&R/HarperCollins, 1993). About the Poet Diane Fahey Diane Fahey was born in Melbourne, Australia. After spending a number of years living in Britain in the early eighties, she lived for six years in Adelaide, and now lives in Geelong, Victoria. Diane attended the University of Melbourne, and has subsequently combined writing with teaching in schools, universities, and in adult education. In 2002, she taught in the Professional Writing and Editing Course at the Centre for Adult Education, Melbourne. She holds a Diploma of Secondary Education and the degrees of B.A. and M.A. from the University of Melbourne, and a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Western Sydney; its title is: 'Places and Spaces of the Writing Life'. Her poetry features both Australian and European settings and preoccupations. Dominant concerns are Greek myth, fairy tales, visual art and landscape, and increasingly, ecological themes. Metamorphoses was shortlisted for the Victorian, and N.S.W., Premier's Awards in 1988, and Mayflies in Amber was shortlisted for the John Bray Poetry Award at the Adelaide Festival of Arts in 1994. Listening to a Far Sea was shortlisted for the 'Age' Book of the Year Award, Poetry Section, in 1998.    [Above] Photo of Diane Fahey by Beverly Hall, 2000. I Next I Back I Exit I Thylazine No.6 (September, 2002)