In Early Time - the Scoffing was at Rationalism

In Early Time
the Scoffing was at Rationalism

(set in Central Australia, early 20th Century)


We went north-west - through mulga
scrub, in the red centre’s sturdy ironwoods,
to camp on a grey Umberla plain.

Next morning, as we boiled billy
in early time, we became entranced
looking about Central Mt Wedge,

as - in cold frosty air - a mirage came
onto the horizon so that distant blue
mountains rose into air,

magnified, came so near us, we
could plainly discern rocks, ravines
and trees. Rationalising this

strange phenomenon, we were
scoffed at, by the practical desert
tribesman who was with us, for he

in learned patience, explained those
things were works of “Ngunta fairy folk”
who lived in those mountains.

-obviously, by dancing in cold dawn,
these beings - with their magic songs
- lifted these hills into the sky,

and, as sun rose closer to heaven,
they lowered them back once more
on to the tribal lands.

And we, entering into this geography, woke
a little to a listening that filled another day
with vistas of likely epiphanies all about us.


4 May 2001 © Wayne David Knoll

Based on a true account by W.B. (Bill) Harney
in "Life Among The Aborigines"
- 1957 [Robert Hale Ltd] pp 207