Time and Still
by Joyce Parkes
in memory of Robert Juniper
Ironstone rock – a mass
of conglomerated pebbles –
nestling in the hills
east of Perth
alongside granite,
clay and sand, shaped
the Darling Ranges’ ridges
where jarrah trees and bamboo,
kangaroo-paws* and roses,
grow on what was first
Gondwanaland, then
Laurasia, then the Great
South Land — grounds,
propelling painters
and their friends
to sketch the scarp,
read the road, hue
the heavens,
sculpt abodes, dwell
on leaves and grit.
*) Kangaroo-paws: any of several plants of the Western Australian
genus Anigozanthos, having an inflorescence bearing resembling
a kangaroo-paw, especially A. manglesii, red and green kangaroo-
paw, the floral emblem of Western Australia.