An Incoming Tide

Picture: Peering through trees to Merimbula Lake

An Incoming Tide

It was my privilege and delight to have served, at different intervals of time, in both Bega and Pambula Parishes.  Both of them celebrate 150 years this year.  I am unable to attend either of the celebrations.  A truly beautiful part of this State of New South Wales, our family had holidayed there at times.  Later I would work there.  Part of me will always feel a yearning to be there. So, while I was adrift on a sea of memories, impressions and feelings, a poem emerged.  It is included here.

Picture: Snug Cove at Eden

An Incoming Tide

An incoming tide

Of gratitude

Laps

Upon the shore

Of my thankful heart.

Hearing the news of 150 years

Fell upon me

A wistful haze

And then

A start!

Speak, I must

Of tidings,

Wishes to folks

Friends and others,

Who dwell upon

Meadows and hills,

Crags and beaches,

Or points and rocky ramparts,

That keep watch,

Over billowing seas.

Ah, the mighty Bega Valley

And Sapphire Coast.

Jewel that glints

And glistens,

In the eye

Of everyone who has seen it,

Felt it,

And breathed

The briny air.

And where it has

Taken them.

Taken them

It has.

To a place within,

Where a little piece of coast

Has settled in the heart.

And,

If one listens,

They can hear the reverberations,

The swirling sound,

Like a sea in a shell,

Stirring the caverns

Of our inner selves,

Keeping always a little current

Of this valley and coast

inside.

Picture: looking up the wending Yowaka River

Simon C.J. Falk           23 September 2015

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Off to Candelo!

To Candelo

Another example of an older poem.   Recollections of a time when I lived in the Bega Valley.  I hope some readers get a little enjoyment from it.

To Candelo

 Off, off, we go, to Candelo!

Where the creek runs through the hills.

Where the wombats run and foxes dodge the gun,

And the dairies take their fills.

 

Where folks milk their cows,

And fatten their sows,

Where sheep take leave of their fleece.

 

Where Mount Myrtle stands tall,

And the Candelo Hall,

Bears generations of stories in its walls.

 

Where hockey and bowls

Give young and old some roles,

To play for their local team.

 

And the Pub and the Club

Keep serving the grub

And a schooner or two in between.

 

Where they’re proud of their show

And their markets you know

And the milk that is topped off with cream.

 

Then open your eyes to the snakes and fish,

The creek carries down in its stream.

 

So, come back! Come back!

Along Candelo track,

Where the folks make you feel at home.

You remember a while, the Candelo style,

No matter how far you roam.

 

 

Simon C.J. Falk 25 October 2008

 

Yowaka River

 

 

 

Occasionally I like to post some older poems.  It gives a bit of a mix.  It also helps us see what is enduring in writers and what changes.

 

Yowaka River

 

In Yowaka’s twists and bends,

The peace follows in the breeze,

The calm is balm to all its friends,

Who shelter ‘neath its trees.

 

The mullet jump at passing insects skimming water’s top,

Flathead sink in sandy hollows in the river’s pools,

And then you hear a plop!

As children jump from the pontoon, when they’ve come home from schools!

 

Canoes you see a paddling,

Up river or down the mouth,

Cars the bends are straddling,

On the Highway north or south.

 

Fisher folk with plenty of pluck,

Cast into the balmy brine,

A puffer fish might test their luck,

Or a whiting find their line.

 

But the Kooris know the spots to go,

To find fish in scales or shells,

With patience that lets them take it slow,

And their dreaming giving them spells.

 

The Yowaka’s been here longer than us,

And will be when we’re gone,

It wends its way with little fuss,

Sparkling in the sun.

 

Simon C.J. Falk 21 December 2008