MY BEAT
(with apologies to Bruce Cockburn)
i. MONDAY TO FRIDAY
Hard grind.
600 metres to the top
Gradient: One in ten? Feels like it
Much less though.
And then swing right and then left across Dudley Road avoiding cars both ways
(What traffic laws?)
To the pedestrian crossing,
then left and down the hill
Make sure you miss the gouged out holes near the top (two broken ribs 4 years ago)
and it’s onto the track.
The track.
Twenty years ago it was….
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Bitumen. Even, Flat,
Measured conformity,
punctuated by
darkened, patchwork, patch work.
Past familiar faces.
No names. Just faces.
Each out for their morning constitutionals.
Greetings.
on the run.
Same each morning:
“’Morning”
“G’day”
Seasonal acknowledgements:
“Cold this morning.”
“Merry Christmas.”
My online on track community: old, young, men women, Christians, Muslims, Calathumpians, multiculturalism in motion.
Anonymous. Familiar.
Occasionally a fleeting additional intimacy as regulars partner up:
The women in a pair walk dutifully ten paces behind their husbands:
“Have they got boy germs this morning?”
Followed by a laugh and a wave.
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4 kilometres and I’m gone.
The serenity of the track behind me as I confront
The daily dodge of traffic.
My senses assaulted by fumes and noise and movement.
City Road. Impersonal.
Wait for the red light at Brunker Rd to temporarily halt the traffic flow into town
before crossing to the right (LEFT) side.
Down the hill and on into the city.
The only pleasantries exchanged during the next 6 kilometres
are with the newspaper seller outside the Civic Hotel in Hunter St.
We wave.
Silently
ii. SUNDAY
Summer.
Dry. Parching
Strength sapping Humidity.
Sunday,
And I’m alone.
With my thoughts.
Glenrock rises up to meet me as I leave Fernleigh.
Tracks!!
A multitude of tracks weave their way.
Worn. Weathered Beaten.
By Europeans?
Or much older, wiser steps?
By people who knew their place
in this
PLACE.
In tune. In synch. In essence with
At one with….
I am on a track.
But on track?
A path wends its way before me
But I seem to have
lost
my
way.
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Cicadas. Deafening
as I pass through a glade of Angophera.
Angophera
Is there a more beautiful word?
Say it. Ang - gof - ra.
Silkily sliding off the tongue and lips.
The hard “g” transformed as the smoothness of every other sound elides
Across... Around... And
over it
borrowing.. capturing... stealing... invoking
their softness...
ANGOPHERA: Red gum.
Bark as smooth as its name.
Each branch twisted, gnarled,
Bifurcating Into its own Mandelbrotic beauty
gravity-defying, Down, then up in their reaching for…
what?
Sunlight?
Moisture?
Immortality?
As with us all.
As I stop to admire
I get a fleeting, half sensed notion of
Trees…
Breathing...
I can almost ….
touch it.
Touch it.
Touch…
Inhale/exhale
Touch…
Touch…
Is this what they feel?
Is this what it means?
Is this the key?
To being at one with the land?
Is this what we lack?
The gap?
The gap?
In our lived experience?
Experience beyond just existence?
Being rather than subsisting?
Is this why we feel unfulfilled
Strangers in our own land?
Strangers
In
A
Familiar landscape
Familiar strangers?
Because we…
I …
can’t……
Quite…
Get…
To….
I stall, Mr Ramsay–like....
Reaching... grasping... yearning
for insight,
for the letter “R”
“Q!”
“Q!!”
“R!!!!!”
It’s there
There!
THERE!
To the lighthouse
on the hill
it…
The moment passes.
The sea, the ocean opens up to me, magnificent in its blueness and clarity.
To my left
The telltale signature of the sewerage works wafts across the landscape
Like a Protective veil.
Ironic, the symbiotic interaction
Between sewerage and recreational open space.
There but for the grace of shit goes
GLENROCK MEADOWS:
EXPERIENCE YOUR OWN LITTLE PIECE OF COUNTRY.
RIGHT NEXT TO THE SEA
PERFECT FOR MODERN FAMILY LIFE
JUST 3 KILOMETRES
FROM THE CENTRE OF
NEWCASTLE.
SELLING FAST
III. INTERLUDE
This morning I fail to acknowledge a number of regulars
This morning I am distracted.
Yesterday I received a letter in the mail.
It begins
“YOU ARE A TRAITOR TO THE CAUCASIAN RACE”
and was signed
REALISTIC RACIST
Last week I wrote a letter to the editor defending African young people against people who call themselves
“NATIONALISTS”
Someone sent a response
To my home address.
My home address.
Home
HOME!
As I ride to work this morning I find myself consumed by this missive.
Pre-occupied, deep in thought. The letter reminded, scolded me:
SEAGULLS DO NOT FLY AROUND WITH CROWS…..
THE SEWERS OF THE WORLD ARE NOW EMPTYING INTO THIS COUNTRY.
And, most vile:
IMPORTING KAFFIRS.
And then,
Fearful that I would not be aware of the meaning of a word which
oozes, drips, spits, spews,
colonialism
and
racism
and
hatred
and
insult
in Africa,
they provided me with the following helpful bracketed definition
KAFFIRS (AFRICAN NEGROS)
As if this knowledge was only available to the chosen few,
Who alone are aware of its iconic status
as the invective of choice
Of white supremacists.
The last vestige of Apartheid.
I respond with equal parts anger and fear.
My daughter is shaken by the experience
“They know where we live Dad.”
And my sin? I wrote a letter.
A letter!
I wrote a letter!
I want to expose this ignorance.
My mind darts about with ideas:
An open letter to the REALISTIC RACIST, an op ed piece for the Herald
Wiser heads prevail.
Ignore. Don’t provide oxygen.
Don’t expose your family to any further……….
I compromise and report it to the police.
iv. HISTORY
1988
My first mountain bike
It was like re-discovering myself
At 12 years of age.
My first job: riding my bike
Delivering Chemist prescriptions. ₤1/10s per week.
Forced at 5.30 every night to ride up the Loftus Hill.
Getting off and walking at the halfway point.
And then……
A 25 year hiatus.
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GEARS!!!!
My mountain bike has gears!
No more getting off and walking
No more Loftus hills
I am liberated.
Free to explore
To become
An explorer
And I ride the old Fernleigh rail line
Overgrown, grown over
All the way to Belmont.
Back then It is rough.
Sleepers-exposed
Rutted.
Each sleeper separated by up to 8 inch trenches
Deadly for the front wheels of unwary travellers.
lured,
tempted
by the false certainty
of the notion
of a pathway through
the bush
resulting in uncontrolled
somersaulting,
cartwheeling
over handlebars
ending up lying spreadeagled on the track.
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I ride every track in Jewells swamp until each gradually fades and disappears
into a sandy nether area
Inhabited only by brown snakes
And unseen frogs
◊
◊
I discover Glenrock
With its myriad tracks
And hidden treasures
Nooks
Glades
Gullies,
Retreats
Creeks
Waterfalls
And fauna!
The most unusual
a pair of metre long goannas
Copulating
Spooning
Rutting
Silently
Not more that a metre in front of me
As I climb a stepped track.
Distracted by their friction-motivated activity,
They ignore me
As I stand transfixed
By this display of reptilian sensuality.
How many people would have seen such an act?
How many would want to?
v. IMPRESSIONS
Cloudburst prompts me to
shelter at Souths Leagues in a
forlorn hope of sun
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Winter track at night
Can be five degrees colder
Headlamp shows the way
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Tunnel funnels wind
as you negotiate the
arc of the Cov’ring
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Frill-necked lizards bask
In summer swelter until
Startled, they scamper
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Nine pm stillness
Disturbed by overhead swoop
Of a startled owl
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Thirty five trees Down
Fence slipped, smashed. Devastation
samaritan clears.
Vi. MY BEAT
Riding was my crutch.
In my serotonin-deprived previous life.
It offered a haven,
A retreat
From the black cloud
As it weaved its way
From the back of my brain
To the front
I would push
Harder
Faster
Sweat-induced
Exertion
Suppressing
Repressing
Depressing :)
The wave of….
Fear
And
Loathing,
Self-loathing
Self-flagellating
Of the
Chemically imbalanced
Interactive higher order organism
That was …….
Me.
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That was then
This is now.
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It’s Friday 29th June.
Deadline. Closing date.
This poem requires an ending.
A neat, pithy, bicycle themed ending
Which ties together its multiple themes in a succinct manner.
Because this poem is about product,
not process.
Excellence
And……..
But…
What about the journey?
The journey?
“It’s not the winning, it’s the struggle”
- Ben Chifley
The struggle
From Loftus hill to Glenrock.
As I cycle with my newly acquired
Pharmaceutically-induced balance
Across the highways and byways
I find that my enthusiasm for riding has diminished.
Black cloud has receded
Less of a struggle
but
replaced by…
Ennui
Swings and roundabouts
Aye there’s the rub.
