JANUARY 3 2011 : "Two trees planted together cannot avoid brushing against each other."

http://www.africanevents.com/AfricanQuotes1.htm

The Green Palm Tree

I sat under a delicate palm tree
On a shore of sounding waves.
I felt sure I was alone,
Listening.
    A sea-gull flew by from France,
    A sea-gull flew by from Spain,
    A sea-gull flew by from Mexico!
I laughed softly
When they saw me:
It was those travellers
From foreign countries
Changed my thoughts
To laughter!

 

Hilda Conkling    1910-1986

http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/49091-Hilda-Conkling-The-Green-Palm-Tree

foto – palm trees in bilambil january 2006

JANUARY 2 2011: “Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.” C S Lewis

http://www.poems.net.au/quotes-by-famous-poets/

Walk on a rainbow trail; walk on a trail of song, and all about you will be beauty. There is a way out of every dark mist, over a rainbow trail.
Virginia Woolf.

http://www.saidwhat.co.uk/quotes/famous/virginia_woolf

foto – rain and mist in bilambil january 2006

DECEMBER 31 2010 : Better an egg this year than a chicken next year. Ethiopian.

http://www.inspirationfalls.com/chicken-quotes/

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

New Year’s eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights. 

Hamilton Wright Mabie

http://www.quotegarden.com/new-year.html

foto – new years moon in ulmarra 2009

DECEMBER 30 2010 : Children – there are other lands like ours all around us, which are occupied by strange and queer people I am not prepared to describe, as I have never seen them; but I do say that there are other forms of life.

Unaipon was born in 1872 at the Point McLeay Mission in South Australia

http://epress.anu.edu.au/bwwp/mobile_devices/ch02.html

Those who have one foot in the canoe, and one foot in the boat, are going to fall into the river. Native American.

http://www.quotatio.com/topics/proverbial-wisdom.html

foto – hobies on the clarence 2009 with edwina

DECEMBER 29 2010 : It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent. Dave Barry.

http://quotes.maxabout.com/camping-quotes/1091/page-1

Understand Old One

What if you came back now
To our new world, the city roaring
There on the old peaceful camping place
Of your red fires along the quiet water,
How you would wonder
At towering stone gunyas high in air
Immense, incredible;
Planes in the sky over, swarms of cars
Like things frantic in flight.

Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker)

http://allpoetry.com/opoem/25216-Oodgeroo-Noonuccal–Kath-Walker–Understand-Old-One

foto – casino camp grounds nsw 2008 december

DECEMBER 28 2010 : There’s a new foot on the floor, my friend, And a new face at the door, my friend, A new face at the door.

Alfred Lord Tennyson 1809-1892

http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/2981-Alfred-Lord-Tennyson-The-Death-of-the-Old-Year

So I haunt the cool, dark places
  By the river, from that hour
When the dawn’s bright finger traces
  Fairy lights about my bower,
Till the western hilltops redden,
  Fade, and vanish I am there,
And the far skies, growing leaden,
  Bid me seek my secret lair.

The Blue Kingfisher

.C.J. DENNIS.

http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/123434-C-J-Dennis-The-Blue-Kingfisher

foto – kalang in december 2008

DECEMBER 27 2010 : You enquire about the kingfisher’s feathers, which tremble in the pure springs of the southern tides?

I want to tell you the ocean knows this,
that life in its jewel boxes
is endless as the sand, impossible to count, pure.

Pablo Neruda (1904 – 1973)

http://blog.gaiam.com/quotes/authors/pablo-neruda/45640

The airy golden vapour rose from the river breast,
The kingfisher came darting out of his crannied nest,
And the bullrushes and reed-beds put off their sallow grey
And burnt with cloudy crimson at the dawning of the day.

The Australian Sunrise

James Lister Cuthbertson

1851-1910

foto – kingfisher at repton 2009

DECEMBER 25 2010 : Call a truce, then, to our labours — let us feast with friends and neighbours, and be merry as the custom of our caste; for if ”faint and forced the laughter,” and if sadness follow after, we are richer by one mocking Christmas past. Rudyard Kipling.

On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
A kookaburra in a gum tree
On the second day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Two cockatoos, and a kookaburra in a gum tree
Three parakeets………
Four great galahs…….
Five opals black……
Six ‘roos a-jumping……..
Seven emus running…….
Eight koalas clinging………
Nine wombats waddling……..
Ten dingoes dashing…….
Eleven snakes a-sliding…….
Twelve goannas going…….
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Twelve goanna goin, Eleven snakes a-sliding,
Ten dingoes dashing, Nine wombats waddling,
Eight koalas clinging, Seven emus running,
Six ‘roos a-jumping, Five opals black,
Four great galahs, Three parakeets,
Two cockatoos, And a kookaburra up a gum tree.

CHRISTMAS DAY
The North Wind is tossing the leaves,
The red dust is over the town,
The sparrows are under the eaves,
And the grass in the paddock is brown;
As we lift up our voices and sing
To the Christ-Child the Heavenly King.
The tree-ferns in green gullies sway;
The cool stream flows silently by;
The joy bells are greeting the day,
And the chimes are adrift in the sky,
As we lift up our voices and sing
To the Christ-Child the Heavenly King.

http://heathhill.blogspot.com/2005/12/australian-christmas-carols.html

foto- xmas 2009 north bello

DECEMBER 24 2010 : for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas.

Charles Dickens.

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," said the Spirit. "Look upon me!"

There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas–something about the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, like the dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails.

JEROME K JEROME.

foto – card from the ulmarra postman 2009

DECEMBER 23 2010 : Put all your eggs in one basket and WATCH THAT BASKET! Mark Twain.

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!"

Charles Dickens

foto – 2009 in ulmarra

DECEMBER 22 2010 : And always a rainbow serpent remembers ancient days.

Samara Flynn, Age 12
Grafton Public School, Grafton NSW

The Clarence
Fishing boats float like waiting ducks
Tempting jumping mullet.
Overhead a snaking bridge sits in the sky,
Carrying noisy cars and trucks
Logs float by, sea drawn
The golden sun sets in the sky
Fish partying on the water surface
Bats fly in at island dawn
Jacaranda tree melting in the haze
Water reflecting-beauty itself
Ripples go through and wrinkle the jacaranda
And always a rainbow serpent remembers ancient days

http://www.dorothea.com.au/index.cfm?page_id=1019

Getting all tangled in line

Been poked from the hook

Catching and losing many

Only watching snakes or

Turtles stealing my catch

Ahh well, just keep fishing

Sweat in the evening sun

Spray on lots of skin-so-soft

To keep the mosquitoes away

Watching the evening dusk

Catching many a biting fish

Goin’ home empty-handed

Copyright © 06/16/2007 MahTame

http://mahtame.webs.com/natureanimalspoems.htm

foto – the ceramics at gcountry ulmarra december 2009

http://www.gcountry.com.au/artist.htm