South of My Days , by Judith Wright, is one of my favourite poems. I love the language of this poem, which was first published in 1946, and the vivid evocation of landscape and sense of place, which speaks strongly to an Australian ethos and also to aspects of its history.

I first shared it as part of the Tuesday Poem community, but like Monday’s post, I believe it merits the refeature. It’s timely, too, since it’s very much a winter poem and we’re in the midst of the Southern Hemisphere winter now.

South of My Days (An Excerpt)

South of my days’ circle, part of my blood’s country,
rises that tableland, high delicate outline
of bony slopes wincing under the winter,
low trees, blue-leaved and olive, outcropping granite-
clean, lean,  hungry country. The creek’s leaf-silenced,
willow choked, the slope a tangle of medlar and crabapple
branching over and under, blotched with a green lichen;
and the old cottage lurches in for shelter.

…

Oh, they slide and they vanish
as he shuffles the years like a pack of conjuror’s cards.
True or not, it’s all the same; and the frost on the roof
cracks like a whip, and the back-log break into ash.
Wake, old man. This is winter, and the yarns are over.
No-one is listening
South of my days’ circle
I know it dark against the stars, the high lean country
full of old stories that still go walking in my sleep.

~ by Judith Wright, 1915 – 2000

You can read the full poem on the All Poetry site, here, and the Wikipedia article on Judith Wright, here.