Day Out

Sheep white against the deep greens.
And waterfalls
like painters’ mistakes
cascading in milky, mile long lines.

Half finished towns
crouch too close to the road, ramshackled wood
painted bright colours or stained deep red.
Mapuche ride horses, ponchos grubby from work,
stray dogs lick puddles and I practice my Spanish,
rehearsing words.. parade, estaciones.

A winding road of black broken rock
up to hill-billy farms;
rabbits, goats graze and horses
lean out to look us over.

The terma was like 'Fantasy Land',
we walked on planks over the roaring river
into a ravine of hothouse vegetation.
Sulphurous steam rising from pools
where bikinied girls and bigger men from the States
lolled, as we were soon,
the warmth melting,
the rain eerily ineffective.

Going home, Angie sang Xmas carols
off key
as we munched biscuits, me in the front,
slicing tomatoes and avocado
while my son drove through the shadows.

About This Poem

Editing Stage: Editing - rough draft

About the Author

Region, Country: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, AUS

Favorite Poets: Dylan Thomas, T.S Eliot, Stevie Smith, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marvell, Herbert, Gerald Manley Hopkins, Rilke, Holderlin, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Valery, Gregory Corso, Alan Ginsberg, Phillip Larkin, Elizabeth Bishop, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Yeats, Ferlinghetti, Tony Hoagland, Ezra Pound, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Browning, Petra Whiteley, Blake, Thomas Hardy, Syvia Plath, Pablo Naruda, Lorca, Cole Porter, A.E Cummings, Walt whitman, Tennyson, Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, Les Murray, Gig Ryan, Edward Dorn, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Seamus Heaney.

Comments

Ian.T

12 years 4 months ago

Ross

This mixed me a little as I know you are in Australia, the day out seemed to reflect quite a few lands from the USA to South America New Zealand and a few other places was this your point of of clouding the scenes..
The laugh of the Kookaburra,
The sway of the Gum trees trying to displace the hungry Koala's.
Still the trip was inviting, let us journey on,
Yours Ian.T

Ross Hamilton Hill

12 years 4 months ago

Hi Ian

I say in the poem 'I practice my Spanish' while we are riding through ramshackle towns, so obviously the poem is set in a spanish speaking foreign country, Mapuche are a Indian tribe found only in Chile, 2 minutes on google would have told you that, so I am at a loss to understand why you are confused, there is absolutely nothing in the poem to do with any other country.
hasta luego
Ross

Ian.T

12 years 4 months ago

Ross

Even had your name wrong lol, I usually check words I don't know but it may have been late at night and I was probably tired.
It was the Sheep that threw me lol
I will pay attention next time..
I had some friends in Argentina but lost contact quite a few years ago, she was a Doctor and brought her son over to the UK to learn English, they stayed with us for a while, so I should have realised what you were talking about lol, Then last year My sisters family went to that city Machu Picchu to raise funds.
OK OK I is sorry lol Bloody brilliant write, Yours Sparrow

Ross Hamilton Hill

12 years 4 months ago

Hi Ian

I also went to Peru, Maccu Picchu is a ruin not a city, I loved it, Cuzco is the city and was the center of the Inca empire and there is Inca architecture everywhere, I liked Pisca, a Inca town that has been lived in by Inca continuously to this day.
Chile is more prosperous, although still has third world poverty. In both, no one speaks much English, so some Spanish is a must. The terma was near an inland resort area, Lake Pucon, an amazing place with a huge still active volcano towering over the town.
regards
Ross