The Bush by Pat Donovan-Guenot is a quiet reflection on loving a landscape the poet has never visited, imagining its sounds, light and wildlife from afar.
From a tiny frog and lonely bird to filtering sunrays, swaying grasses and a peaceful billabong, the poem finds wonder in a place held vividly in the mind.
The Bush
By Pat Donovan-Guenot
How could I write a poem
About somewhere I’ve never been?
How could I set in verse
Things I’ve never seen?
How could my brain imagine
Sounds I’ve never heard?
A tiny frog croaking,
The song of a lonely bird…
Strange noises of an animal
Burrowing in the night,
Or a joyful cry of welcome
At the coming of first light…
How could I talk of sunrays
Filt’ring through the trees?
The swaying of tall grasses
Caressed softly by the breeze…
Or the peace around a billabong,
As the animals come to drink,
The coolness of the evening,
When the sun is on its brink…
My verse could never rival
That of those who know
The bush and all its magic,
Where I may never go.
No, I could never write
Rhymes of any sort;
Just love the bush discreetly,
In the silence of my thought.
Keeping The Verse Alive
The Bush is shared with permission from Pat Donovan-Guenot through Keeping The Verse Alive, Country Campfire’s bush poetry preservation project.
By preserving poems like this, we’re helping ensure the stories, humour and characters of country Australia continue to be enjoyed for generations to come.
Poems, recitals, photographs, stories and original works remain the property of their original creator and are shared by Country Campfire with permission.
