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Live Encounters Poetry & Writing January 2023
Patho Plain, poem by Marilyn Humbert.
Patho Plains
The plains are still before dawn
a grey-time of waiting
for flutist-magpies welcome to sunrise.
I breathe in, the trees breath out.
My father’s forebears settled here
nurturing the soil, greening the space
where eucalypts once dotted the vastness,
rivers flowed free.
We weren’t the first to wander
this expanse, but we know its cycles.
The brittle wind’s lift and shift
of topsoil far beyond,
the creek beds cracked patterns,
the wait for rain.
We dream with those who chant
the ancient prayers of homage.
Today sun shines across the plains
I breathe in its warmth.
Note – Patho Plains are part of Victoria’s Northern Plains Australia
© Marilyn Humbert
Marilyn Humbert lives on Darug and GuriNgai land in Berowra, NSW Australia. Her tanka and haiku appear in International and Australian journals, anthologies and online. Her free verse poems have been awarded prizes in competitions, published in anthologies, journals and online most recently in Burrow and FemAsia Magazine.