Haikus

Birak:
Hot summer weather.
Down at the beach cooling off.
Season of the Young.

Bunuru:
Hottest time of year.
Season of Adolescence.
Dry, searing weather.

Djeran:
A break in the weather.
Season of The Adulthood.
Time of red flowers.

Makuru:
Makuru, wet, cold.
It’s Fertility Season.
Winter time is here.

Djilba:
The Growing Season.
Flowering acacias.
Magpies are swooping.

Kambarang:
Wildflower Season.
An abundance of colours.
The Season of Birth.

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This poem was Highly Commended (Secondary) for Poetry Object 2017

Judge's Notes:
"A perfectly executed cycle of haiku, each titled for one of the seasons of the year as understood by first peoples. I love the way each haiku runs from weather and temperature to a place or a plant or a bird, to a human and personal experience at that time, to a naming of the season in the colonisers’ tongue. Each covers so much with so little, and the sequence seems to tell a whole geography, a whole way of being somewhere on earth."
~ Mark Tredinnick, Judge, Poetry Object 2017

Watch our Poetry Object 2017 digital exhibition:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TukWN1BdcPs