He set aside studios
For people in his space
Developed quite an industry
Set a cracking pace.

Didn’t go much for the arts,
Apart from photographs.
And many scale models of new and old aircraft.

Bunbury flying schools club house
with its unique display,
of every kite known to man.
Hanging From the ceiling,
diving from the walls.

There’s aircraft in the hangars,
there’s aircraft homing in,
from all points you could call.
They’re doing bumps and circuits,
learning how to fly

And the “nanchang” pilots
diving from way up in the sky.
Pulling out on G force,
that leaves your boots behind.

Rolling slowly on a wing tip
as landscape flashes by.
Dissapearing for the moment,
seems hours dragging by.

Reappears across the ranges,
Distant speck in a blue sky.
Studios in cloud breaks.
Dreamin’ as we fly.

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I’ve been to Versailles and the champ-élysées,
seen Mona Lisa through crowds on the wall.
Angels and devils hover above.
Michelangelo painted ’em all.

Pitch forks and maidens, chubby faced kids,
halos and stuff by the score.
All of the moss and every rock,
carefully shaped and placed cross this land.

In churches and villas and chateaux and squares,
rock wall cities radiate from.
Nice to drift through on a canal boat for two
on a gentle cruise down the Somme.

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Through fluffy clouds
a Distant coast,
creek lines wander,
fences straight.

Inland as 30,000 feet
of eagle’s view,
out from a seat,
speeding home,
mission complete.

White flat whorls
of desert white,
drain-off clay-pans westwardly,
trickling slowly
off to sea.

Linked in quilts
of grey and green
as seasons roll
on steadily.

Sailing through on silver wings,
cotton clouds a solid floor,
a glimpse of green in paddocks sewn,
fallow ground close stock clipped mown.

Closer in as country changes,
national parks,
low banksia ranges,
water courses to the coast.

Switch back creeks, through towns and gullies,
glimpses of long billabongs,
shady gums,
eroded banks,
minds-eye beckons,
thinking back on rivers running.

Bankers grew as water poured.
Headwaters out 200k, north and south and westward
Flowed, through land in drought across its space,
flowed through a dusty dreadful waste of weakened livestock bogged and drowned,
sailed down stream at record pace.

Jammed in logs
to feed the crows
and carrion patrolling near,
indulge themselves on stricken steer.

As waters ease,
hot sun bakes down
on flats and rivers,
cooking clay,
humid mirage and insects play
in brilliant white,
shimmering display.

Mind’s-eye beckons back on course.
Long way back,
way back up north.
Lakes slow whorl in ancient pattern,
trickle slow to water courses,
billabongs shine ‘long its reaches,
marks along the countries features.

Steadily to gleaming sea,
below the clouds on lost horizons.

No Comments John Taylor