SOUTHERN MEMORY

Staring at familal blooded maps:

Waratah, Leprena, Ida Bay;
breathing in the footfall of ancestors.
Tracing lines, convict chains
Belfast to Van Diemen's Land.
Southern frontier homesteads
and ever pregnant women;
timber dragged by bullocks,
searching for prosperity in rocks.
Mud and strain, oar and axe,
rhythms of a former life.
Three unblinking generations
tell a camera who they are:
Sunday best on a verandah.
Homes now faint remnants
in unconquered wilderness.