A celebration of poetry written by members and friends of the MuseItUp Club. Submissions are invited for this page.*

TASMANIA

by Sally Odgers

Oh, my island, temperate, cool,
your seasons paint the pallette so;
to favour artists autumnal
you flash your borrowed northern trees. 
Your spring-in-winter lights the hills
with wattles' gold and crimson heath,
in frosted grass and burgeoned flood
and watered hollows full of sky...
True spring brings cups of daffodil
and manferns fronding deep and green
while summer tosses poplar spires,
to gleam against the temperate gums.
Your wattles dark in secrecy
with teatrees clump by creek and bog,
and brambles blotched (encroaching rust)
are not as in remembered days.
The river splutters into stilly
pools with wattle pods and twigs;
beards of green lie languidly
upon the chins of cobbly stones
in waters I remember clear...
My God! What have we done to you?
My island: dreams of stately days
in federated houses still,
and gothic churches; iron lace,
with Georgian sandstone, fifties brick
to mingle in eternal blend;
blue mountains, peaks with snow and grey
of bluffs and slaty plateau lakes;
green farmland, beaches white and wide
with windswept ripples in the sand.
My island, fling your changing moods
across your weathered cloudy face --
be old in wisdom, hawthorn young
forgive us as we walk your roads
and keep your hills and sunny paths alive.

© Sally Odgers

Sally Odgers lives in Tasmania, Australia, with her husband and assorted dogs and cockatoos. As well as writing books for sale, and poetry for the fun and challenge of it, she works part-time as a manuscript assessor. In between work, she walks the dogs, reads, gardens and cultivates her website. You can visit her at: http://www.sallyodgers.com or http://sallyodgers.50megs.com

*Send poetry submissions to underamuse@yahoo.com.au .

Please include the words “Muse Marquee Poetry Submission” in the subject line. Special themes for 2008 are romance and human failings.

The Poets Page is edited by Les Stephenson.

NEXT MONTH WE ANNOUNCE THE WINNER OF OUR POETRY CONTEST – DON'T MISS IT!