Marilyn Humbert lives in Sydney NSW Australia, she has a connection with the land from her father and often writes poems about her childhood experiences. Marilyn’s tanka and haiku can be found in many international journals and online.
Muddy Water
north-west of today
lie my childhood plains
muddy water country
that man-made web of channels and drains
a purple lucerne sea ebbs and flows
my father calling his milking herd
halfway on a backroad home
the undulating landscape flattens
fences stark and black edge the horizon
the channels of my past still lick their banks
but thistles and burrs smother pastures
surrounding the sprawl of unused drains
small-acre dairy herds of yesterday
usurped –
conglomerates
sell cut-price supermarket milk
winds carry father’s soil
far away
The Loddon District, North-Central Victoria, Australia