ABPA — The Australian Bush Poets Association Inc.

Mandildjarra Mourning

© Peter O’Shaughnessy

Winner, Eastwood/Hills FAW Boree Log 2023, Sydney NSW.

There is nobody left on the Spinifex plains
    where the desert winds ruffle the sands,
for this lonely old nomad is all that remains
    of the people who hunted these lands –
      the tribes who once lived in these lands.

He was born Mandildjarra, but came here to die
    all alone in this desolate place,
where he dreams of a life that has now passed him by
    and he mourns for the past of his race –
      for he is the last of his race.

And he mourns for the days when he roamed this red land
    where he hunted and lived with his wife.
Where the distant blue hills lay like mist on the sand
    and his tribe was a part of his life –
      his tribe a big part of his life.

They would camp by a creek in the shade of the trees,
    where the breeze over desert pools hums
with the sounds of the birds and the tiny bush bees,
    in the shade of the ghostly white gums –
      the shady, great, ghostly white gums.

He still dreams of the times when they caught kangaroo
    and then roasted the tail on the stones.
And to trap an emu they used tricks that they knew
    would draw strength from the life in the bones –
      the life they could draw from his bones.

And he misses the sounds of the desert at night,
    the wind’s hiss in the dry mulga trees,
how the black desert oak’s silky whispers delight,
    or the fizz of a red sand-hill breeze –
      the fizzing hot red sand-hill breeze.

He remembers mirages the summer sun makes,
    silver shimmers that promise so much
and the shining white glare of the salt on the lakes,
    full of spectres nobody could touch –
      the mirages no one could touch.

And those days when the rugged hill country’s cool pools
    were the places where people survived
and the Martu all lived by the hot summer’s rules,
    but they lived there and loved there and thrived –
      the desert tribes lived there and thrived.

And those icy cold nights when a winter was dire
    with a frost on the Moongooloo Hills.
When he slept with his dingoes beside a small fire,
    so they’d ward off the desert wind chills –
      they’d ward off the desert wind chills.

They were times when the winds off the desert would hiss
    over crystalline frost on the plain,
with the wind in the mulga the cold, icy kiss
    of the ice on the desert terrane –
      the frosty cold desert terrane.

But a terrible drought for some years had lain on
    the hot hills and the sand plains were dead.
All the water at Barragoodingo had gone
    and the malu and emu had fled –
      and even the euro had fled.

Then with dread he had watched the dry country revolt
    and his lands become tortured and bare,
for he feared the great, glittering oceans of salt
    and the plains of dry spinifex there –
      the silver, dead Spinifex there.

In despair he had searched the hot hills of his home,
    but the gnamma holes there had all dried.
All alone in a wasteland where he used to roam,
    all his dogs and his people had died –
      and even the wildlife had died.

So he fled from his land – it had no more to give –
    to this town where he knew he would die,
but in dreams he returns to where he used to live,
    where the bones of his ancestors lie –
      for that’s where his spirits will lie.



* Malu and Euro … varieties of kangaroo.
* Gnamma holes … semi-permanent water holes in the rocks.
* Martu … collective name for the Western Desert people.

This poem was written to reflect the life of Warri Kyango, (‘The Last of the Nomads’, Dr WJ Peasley, 1983) Warri and his wife Yatungka came in to Wiluna from the drought stricken Western Desert in 1977.They died in 1979 and are buried in the Wiluna cemetery.


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