Ilparpa Claypans

POETRY

Ilparpa Claypans

Adam Doyle

“Ilparpa Swamp and range” by Christopher Watson is licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0

I live out on the claypans. 

The desert’s swamp, 

rising to the red tails each morning, 

then closing to the dogs, 

free and filthy and happy. 

I live out on the claypans, 

where it crusts and curls, 

Mulga trees, stitched into the valley, 

the western valley, 

its smoky, purple silhouette, 

a basket for the sunrise. 

The colour screams throughout  

resplendent  

The glow. The glow. 

Watercolour 

clouds and bulky, 

steel skeletons, 

upturned and rusted, 

sinking back into the silt. 

Slowly. 

And when the dogs are sleeping, 

the diamonds in the dark, 

suspended like glass, 

gleam across the light-years, 

ignoring the red sand. 

Adam Doyle grew up on the fringes of Melbourne, then travelled around Australia and overseas. He gravitated regularly back to Alice Springs, where he managed the Alice Springs Telegraph Station, ran tours, learned to blacksmith, and eventually met his soulmate, Jess. Predominantly playing original music,  he reserved his poetry and storytelling for those close to him but came to rely on its ‘creative lubrication’. After three wonderful years on Arrernte country, Adam now lives on Dja Dja Wurrung country in Eppalock Victoria, with Jess and his two dogs Nancy and Finke.