Cicadas drill clusters of stars.
They hold the sun at night,
equal proportions of heat
and light, and we are their bodies,
so long below ground, ecstatic
on the surface. Their music
dislodges a meteor from erratic
flight, its burning up against
the dark cross of the mountain’s
folds. From up the drive,
walking towards the house—
God’s flesh—the verandah
light, light seeping from windows,
is a garland that relays each step
closer back, a perpetual
motion. My great great grandfather,
Edward Pat Kinsella, speaks
out as settler—not a warrior,
but nonetheless, by his migration,
hope, opportunism, determination,
a ‘soldier’ of the occupation:
‘“O sanguis meus, o superinfusa
gratia Dei, sicut tibi, cui
bis unquam celi ianua reclusa?”’
I imagine Tracy with me as I near
the lightened house—between my isolation
and community, a deferred bliss.
I sense the dead tree arched above me,
its talons clawing, leafless. Now I am beside
the uprooted eucalypt, its tangle
of roots cloyed with gravel,
stately home for insects and reptiles.
Do I share his thinking, beliefs?
Marrying Ann Kavanagh,
Edward Pat, from Leighlinbridge, County Carlow,
left Ireland the same year,
finding the ship Esmeralda—1854.
At first a labourer, then a farmer
at Ludlow near Busselton,
South-West Australia. The land
scored and stained, his first child
born on Upper Farm, Wonnerup,
a year later. Eventually,
a school teacher, he died
in Gelorup, a ‘pioneer’.
I walk off this information,
memorised like mantra.
I celebrate claims of native title.
Tracy is doing the research.
She says it’s vital for the children.
She also believes in native title.
Her smile at this paradox
is no calque—she inspires me:
we have both lost our early beliefs.
Cicadas drill clusters of stars.
They hold the sun at night,
equal proportions of heat
and light, and we are their bodies,
so long below ground, ecstatic
on the surface.