Today was a day warm enough for flippy summer dresses and sun warmed skin. At the Wetlands stage next to the gallery poems were read about country, about Australia, in my case about my dear West.
It was another beautiful collection of words from everyone and I read two new poems I had written earlier today.
All my poems about place are drenched in love and this whole weekend has been a time of high emotion.
After the poems, Blackcurrants and I headed through the city to the foreshore, where the cars from Targa West were doing a bit of a drive-by. Oh loud cars with big engines, I do love them so!

The afternoon was full of light, but the end of the weekend loomed large and we were tired and footsore and I've started feeling nervous and preoccupied and ready to rest.
I had a long bath at home, and finished a book of Laura Vapnyar's stories and now I'm listening to Ira Glass before a very very early night.


Outside Paynes Find

We sit in the still Western night
and nothing feels like a cliche
nothing feels worn, or
thought-of before
and the pressure of your hand
reminds me of where i am
And in my naive
and not a little biased rapture
i let my eyes drift upwards
and fill with stars.
Surely, this wides sky
was invented here
surely no place but this place
can possess such vastness
and somehow, for a moment
i can ignore the pain of drought
as the dry soil creases under my thighs
i can forget the dried bodies
of kangaroos
caught by fence-height
dead just metres from the dam
Somehow, i can be selective
and think rural beauty
where there are broken fences
and eerily swinging gates
miles from anywhere
we sit in this
differently perfect night
and forget that we are just visiting
that when the embers of the fire
cease to glow
we'll load up the landie
and go back to a place
with fewer stars
and a little more water
and perhaps,
a little too much comfort.