We are back in our home by the river now, where at midday the hot Summer light skitters over the water as if unable to settle - waiting till the sun slips lower and the colours soften, deepen.
I reveled In this, Dave. What a delicious account of the lost town. The combination of profoundness and some sadness. Because no matter what, sadness is always there. You should write a memoir, Dave. I would be the first one to buy it!
Oh Naz, my dear friend. I wrestled with this all day - whether to write it, or not, and then what to include, what to leave out. Does that happen to you?
There is a photo of myself with my Brother and Sister - that was in - then out. There was the old dilapidated miner’s shack two long lost friends were living in, when I was around 21 years old, and the story behind that.
Memoir? Well my friend… quite a few of my pieces here disclose much of my life - in shorthand. When I write of my experiences though, it is with the attempt to show something wider than my life - something we all must live through.
Meg did suggest I write a memoir. Very hard to do though without writing of things which are deeply personal to other people, and in some cases things I have no right to disclose….
However - in all seriousness - your (as always) incredibly kind words do move me deeply.
When I read your posts, I can only wish my life to be as varied as yours. So many adventures. So much excitement. I know nobody is without their own share of sorrows. And you have kindly shared a few of yours with me. But to live despite. Oh, to live despite. What a life! And it might be too late for me to have the kind of adventures that you have. But I wish for my kids to experience something like this.
Yes, it happens to me sometimes in writing. But I am generally very uncensored in my writing. Maybe because I mostly write poetry and it is easier to be vague in them than long form?
Absolutely a treasure in language, in feelings and in photos, stunning! Thank you David, so complete was your storytelling, I feel like I travelled there. Happy trails, Geraldine
Yes, indeedy! We learn from each other, I’m happy Substack is here, allowing me to read folks from all over the globe and learn things I could never imagine. Be well, G
mind is the bird. - I love how this circles back to that wing without a bird image... mindless thoughts...the old and new, lost and found...memory and now!!!
Oh my friend... I am glad you liked that! I came across the wing, out in the forest. Such a strange and striking thing. It could have many meanings, but this is the one which came to me....
Dave, it was such a delight to wander with you through memory and your words and photographs. That iridescent blue wing, pointing eerily like a signpost. And my favourite line — ‘ decay now almost… perfection.’ so many things to ponder — past, present, lost found, together and apart. Nostalgia, letting go. A beautiful journey, thank you.
Thank you. A meandering journey - as indeed the whole day was. I could have driven closer and walked in, but it was close enough for a long bike ride.
I made the mistake of believing Google Maps when it said I could do some of the route on a track through an intervening urban fringe bushland reserve. That became a journey all of its own when the trail proved to be non-existent, but I found alternate paths and had some fun along the way.
There is much much more I could have written about this, which would have tied more memories in, but a full account would have taken weeks to write and the underlying themes would be unchanged.
Like you, I love time in the wilderness - but there are many kinds of wilderness. Memory is one also....
Dave, you put words to feelings I often have, I can't quite say what they are or what I want. The difference between us is I don't go out. I can't really. I stay in, so that childhood urge to explore has left me, or I can't act on it. But maybe it hasn't. Maybe when I suffer from discontent, as I have this last week, maybe I need something new. Inside or outside. Real or virtual. Beautiful words and photos. Thanks for sharing this.
I hope that's a good thing. Maybe some feelings are better off wordless and unnamed.
Meg thinks I have a hunter gatherer's instinctive need to prowl around and explore. Certainly - whenever I am somewhere new my first desire is to race out and reconnoiter the scene. I can't relax until I know at least a bit about what lies north, south, east and west. If we are camped by a wild river, I have to see what is upstream and what is downstream. Any nearby mountain is a magnet.
I am extremely fortunate that I can physically do that.
What I have learned from M, however, is the value and serenity in just.... sitting, and letting a place become itself around you. Sometimes - I do the racing around while she does the sitting. "Levanto" - My poem - with Meg's art, is all about that.
At other times, I sit too, and just..... allow myself to be still. I need to do that more.
I'm sitting now, because I'm just home after taking my mountain bike for a 25 mile ride out to, and through, a place called "The Everlasting Swamp."
It's a little known, out of the way place, at the end of a narrow track. Very flat. Very hot. Very monotonous. To my surprise, I met a young guy out there, walking around. He asked me if it was worth walking further.
"What's the best thing here?" he said.
"Oh that's an easy one" I replied. "The very best thing about The Everlasting Swamp - and the only thing about it worth seeing - is the name."
The poor guy looked pretty disappointed… but I could see he was clearly a keen outdoorsy type. We got talking. He is from my old home town - up here just for a visit.
So I have him info on a couple of my own fave best local places in the wilderness.
I love how your words and photos go hand in hand! My favourite part was about how somethings that go together are better of being kept apart. What i keen observation! I'm quite sure you were pausing to write snippets during this walk🙂
I am delighted you like it. Since finding Substack, I have had great enjoyment and creative delight in combining text with my photography, or with art created by my partner, Meg.
A poetry purist might quibble, but some of the works created specifically to combine with the images have brought me enormous satisfaction.
Your work inspires me to play around! I’m definitely not a poetry purist. I think one of these days, I will try record one of my poems in my own voice.
It's funny, I was ruminating on this very topic today, wondering how I could write about returning to some special places I've previously lived, and what's lost and found in the return. I decide against trying that today, and then stumbled upon your post! Thank you! Beautiful journey. And it reminds me that I don't have to write about every single theme I care about: that's what a writers' community is for!
I find things like that happen a lot here. Many wonderful creative people in the same virtual space.... It is indeed a writer's community. At least for now, this is a very warm and supportive place for poetry and creative writing.
Thank you my friend. I sometimes let some prose into the Shack as well, but the dividing line between the two can be hazy anyway.
The majority of my walking, climbing, cycling over the years has been solitary. It is a delight now to share it with others. Your virtual company is more than welcome.
Oh David, this is just so deeply lovely. Thank you for the descriptive narrative undergirding the poem. The photos are much appreciated and support the words, which stand on their own just fine as well.
It’s 3 am and I can’t sleep, so I’m walking the halls of Substack instead. I am glad you enjoyed this. Some thoughts are very hard to distill into words. Maybe that’s why my mind is now so active, when I should be sleeping…. but there is a dream version of this hovering somewhere, not far away now…
David, you write such gorgeous prose. The eerie sense of lost place, the decay that surrounds us, and the sense of entropy this piece created is a marvel. I have been to such places, and putting what is seen and then felt can be difficult to do. This immediately brought to mind a trip I took to Poland, with a visit to a salt mine outside of Krakow where horses where also used underground. (https://www.wieliczka-saltmine.com/individual-tourist/about-the-mine )
If you ever get the chance, it's well worth the trip. And then, an abandoned hiking trail (The Moriah Brook Trail) in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, USA where we crossed a similar decaying bridge over a rushing river. It was thrilling and probably stupid (the condemned bridge has been removed since)...Thanks for sharing your writing talents with us.
M and I have seen quite a lot of your own country, but only the Western side. We have made a few long road trips, in which M indulged my deep love of ghost towns and back roads. Some of that appears in my post “Americana.” https://davidkirkby.substack.com/p/americana?r=471m47
I checked Americana out! Jerome in AZ. is a really cool copper mine ghost town, if you get back to the USA for another tour. Maine, where I live, has spectacular scenery.
Oh Nancy - we would love to visit again. Sadly - the risk of doing so under the current administration means the USA is off our travel list. Too many tourist visitors are being turned back for comments critical of the President - or thrown into indefinite ICE detention. If things calm down, we may return.
This is wonderful, Dave. It is a strange thing going back to a place years afterwards. I can only think of a couple of places. The Lost and Found captures the feeling totally. Thank you. (Love your writing on the Australian landscape.)
Thank you my friend. This one is a kind of travel writing, I suppose, only the travel was much through my memory as it was through the landscape - as your own writings on your birthplace are also.
I intended to write this one as a longer prose piece. The full day was strange and there is much more I could have said.
I went looking for the site of a miner’s shack where two old friends used to live - finding not a remnant of it remaining. I did find the old mine dam - overgrown and haunted. Lantana tangles were spreading relentlessly through the trees and the once public road through the valley - now gated off - is shedding the last of its tar surface as if searching for a new identity.
Hi my friend. Meg did suggest that I write a memoir. I have my doubts - although, taken together, the volume of work on my Substack site is memoir-ish.
Taking out the things that may be hurtful is part of the problem. Sometimes, some of those things are central to your life. If you can do it - fabulous. I'm still thinking it through.
I do intend to write something longer. A lot more thinking needed though....
I reveled In this, Dave. What a delicious account of the lost town. The combination of profoundness and some sadness. Because no matter what, sadness is always there. You should write a memoir, Dave. I would be the first one to buy it!
Oh Naz, my dear friend. I wrestled with this all day - whether to write it, or not, and then what to include, what to leave out. Does that happen to you?
There is a photo of myself with my Brother and Sister - that was in - then out. There was the old dilapidated miner’s shack two long lost friends were living in, when I was around 21 years old, and the story behind that.
Memoir? Well my friend… quite a few of my pieces here disclose much of my life - in shorthand. When I write of my experiences though, it is with the attempt to show something wider than my life - something we all must live through.
Meg did suggest I write a memoir. Very hard to do though without writing of things which are deeply personal to other people, and in some cases things I have no right to disclose….
However - in all seriousness - your (as always) incredibly kind words do move me deeply.
D
When I read your posts, I can only wish my life to be as varied as yours. So many adventures. So much excitement. I know nobody is without their own share of sorrows. And you have kindly shared a few of yours with me. But to live despite. Oh, to live despite. What a life! And it might be too late for me to have the kind of adventures that you have. But I wish for my kids to experience something like this.
Yes, it happens to me sometimes in writing. But I am generally very uncensored in my writing. Maybe because I mostly write poetry and it is easier to be vague in them than long form?
Dear N
Well, adventure is a relative term. Each day is one, really.
Each dawn is
Different.
Keep being
Uncensored. You have wonderful things to say.
D :)
Absolutely a treasure in language, in feelings and in photos, stunning! Thank you David, so complete was your storytelling, I feel like I travelled there. Happy trails, Geraldine
Lady G
Every instant is a treasure. We each spend each one as best we can…
And learn from each other.
It is a pleasure to connect with you - always.
Very best regards
Dave :)
Greetings David,
Yes, indeedy! We learn from each other, I’m happy Substack is here, allowing me to read folks from all over the globe and learn things I could never imagine. Be well, G
Some bridges shouldn't be crossed again.
This is beautiful with nostalgia, David.
Thank you, dear Rea.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
thought is the wing;
mind is the bird. - I love how this circles back to that wing without a bird image... mindless thoughts...the old and new, lost and found...memory and now!!!
Oh my friend... I am glad you liked that! I came across the wing, out in the forest. Such a strange and striking thing. It could have many meanings, but this is the one which came to me....
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Dave, it was such a delight to wander with you through memory and your words and photographs. That iridescent blue wing, pointing eerily like a signpost. And my favourite line — ‘ decay now almost… perfection.’ so many things to ponder — past, present, lost found, together and apart. Nostalgia, letting go. A beautiful journey, thank you.
Hey friend Kate
Thank you. A meandering journey - as indeed the whole day was. I could have driven closer and walked in, but it was close enough for a long bike ride.
I made the mistake of believing Google Maps when it said I could do some of the route on a track through an intervening urban fringe bushland reserve. That became a journey all of its own when the trail proved to be non-existent, but I found alternate paths and had some fun along the way.
There is much much more I could have written about this, which would have tied more memories in, but a full account would have taken weeks to write and the underlying themes would be unchanged.
Like you, I love time in the wilderness - but there are many kinds of wilderness. Memory is one also....
Best Wishes - Dave
Dave, you put words to feelings I often have, I can't quite say what they are or what I want. The difference between us is I don't go out. I can't really. I stay in, so that childhood urge to explore has left me, or I can't act on it. But maybe it hasn't. Maybe when I suffer from discontent, as I have this last week, maybe I need something new. Inside or outside. Real or virtual. Beautiful words and photos. Thanks for sharing this.
Dear Rebecca
I hope that's a good thing. Maybe some feelings are better off wordless and unnamed.
Meg thinks I have a hunter gatherer's instinctive need to prowl around and explore. Certainly - whenever I am somewhere new my first desire is to race out and reconnoiter the scene. I can't relax until I know at least a bit about what lies north, south, east and west. If we are camped by a wild river, I have to see what is upstream and what is downstream. Any nearby mountain is a magnet.
I am extremely fortunate that I can physically do that.
What I have learned from M, however, is the value and serenity in just.... sitting, and letting a place become itself around you. Sometimes - I do the racing around while she does the sitting. "Levanto" - My poem - with Meg's art, is all about that.
At other times, I sit too, and just..... allow myself to be still. I need to do that more.
I'm sitting now, because I'm just home after taking my mountain bike for a 25 mile ride out to, and through, a place called "The Everlasting Swamp."
It's a little known, out of the way place, at the end of a narrow track. Very flat. Very hot. Very monotonous. To my surprise, I met a young guy out there, walking around. He asked me if it was worth walking further.
"What's the best thing here?" he said.
"Oh that's an easy one" I replied. "The very best thing about The Everlasting Swamp - and the only thing about it worth seeing - is the name."
D :)
Ha! You ought to tell that story in a poem. It's delicious. As for your fierce wanderlust curiosity, I just wish......
Ha!
Maybe…
It’s a true story though.
The poor guy looked pretty disappointed… but I could see he was clearly a keen outdoorsy type. We got talking. He is from my old home town - up here just for a visit.
So I have him info on a couple of my own fave best local places in the wilderness.
I just hope they don't turn up on Instagram…. 🙈
shame you have to worry about that
I love how your words and photos go hand in hand! My favourite part was about how somethings that go together are better of being kept apart. What i keen observation! I'm quite sure you were pausing to write snippets during this walk🙂
I am delighted you like it. Since finding Substack, I have had great enjoyment and creative delight in combining text with my photography, or with art created by my partner, Meg.
A poetry purist might quibble, but some of the works created specifically to combine with the images have brought me enormous satisfaction.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Your work inspires me to play around! I’m definitely not a poetry purist. I think one of these days, I will try record one of my poems in my own voice.
I look forward to hearing that!
It took me almost a year before I recorded any voice overs. Some of my works are too personal for me to do that at all - I cannot keep a steady voice.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
It's funny, I was ruminating on this very topic today, wondering how I could write about returning to some special places I've previously lived, and what's lost and found in the return. I decide against trying that today, and then stumbled upon your post! Thank you! Beautiful journey. And it reminds me that I don't have to write about every single theme I care about: that's what a writers' community is for!
Hi dear Harriet
Well that is a strange serendipity....
I find things like that happen a lot here. Many wonderful creative people in the same virtual space.... It is indeed a writer's community. At least for now, this is a very warm and supportive place for poetry and creative writing.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Extremely fascinating finds and words to match them!
Adore your poetry shack and the paths we walk with you!
Thank you my friend. I sometimes let some prose into the Shack as well, but the dividing line between the two can be hazy anyway.
The majority of my walking, climbing, cycling over the years has been solitary. It is a delight now to share it with others. Your virtual company is more than welcome.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Pure joy Dave!!!
Such a pleasure to read, especially with the photos. Thank you for sharing!
The last two lines gave me pause; I want to take them with me today.
"thought is the wing;/mind is the bird."
Good morning Trish
I'm deeply glad that you enjoyed this. It was going to be a prose piece only, but what I felt could not be expressed that way...
Best Wishes - Dave
Oh David, this is just so deeply lovely. Thank you for the descriptive narrative undergirding the poem. The photos are much appreciated and support the words, which stand on their own just fine as well.
Hi Susan
It’s 3 am and I can’t sleep, so I’m walking the halls of Substack instead. I am glad you enjoyed this. Some thoughts are very hard to distill into words. Maybe that’s why my mind is now so active, when I should be sleeping…. but there is a dream version of this hovering somewhere, not far away now…
Best Wishes - Dave
Truly a gift to have so many creative reflections to accompany you on sleepless nights. Or to inspire you away from sleep....
David, you write such gorgeous prose. The eerie sense of lost place, the decay that surrounds us, and the sense of entropy this piece created is a marvel. I have been to such places, and putting what is seen and then felt can be difficult to do. This immediately brought to mind a trip I took to Poland, with a visit to a salt mine outside of Krakow where horses where also used underground. (https://www.wieliczka-saltmine.com/individual-tourist/about-the-mine )
If you ever get the chance, it's well worth the trip. And then, an abandoned hiking trail (The Moriah Brook Trail) in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, USA where we crossed a similar decaying bridge over a rushing river. It was thrilling and probably stupid (the condemned bridge has been removed since)...Thanks for sharing your writing talents with us.
Ah! Dear Nancy…
We clearly love the same things….
Poland is a place I would love to visit.
M and I have seen quite a lot of your own country, but only the Western side. We have made a few long road trips, in which M indulged my deep love of ghost towns and back roads. Some of that appears in my post “Americana.” https://davidkirkby.substack.com/p/americana?r=471m47
Abandoned bridges are fun, hey!?
I checked Americana out! Jerome in AZ. is a really cool copper mine ghost town, if you get back to the USA for another tour. Maine, where I live, has spectacular scenery.
Oh Nancy - we would love to visit again. Sadly - the risk of doing so under the current administration means the USA is off our travel list. Too many tourist visitors are being turned back for comments critical of the President - or thrown into indefinite ICE detention. If things calm down, we may return.
Best Wishes - Dave
Ugh, be assured many Americans do not agree at all with the deranged behavior of Trump. Myself most definitely included.
Hey dear Nancy - I do understand. I have a few US friends - who are appalled and distraught at the direction things are going....
This is wonderful, Dave. It is a strange thing going back to a place years afterwards. I can only think of a couple of places. The Lost and Found captures the feeling totally. Thank you. (Love your writing on the Australian landscape.)
Thank you my friend. This one is a kind of travel writing, I suppose, only the travel was much through my memory as it was through the landscape - as your own writings on your birthplace are also.
I intended to write this one as a longer prose piece. The full day was strange and there is much more I could have said.
I went looking for the site of a miner’s shack where two old friends used to live - finding not a remnant of it remaining. I did find the old mine dam - overgrown and haunted. Lantana tangles were spreading relentlessly through the trees and the once public road through the valley - now gated off - is shedding the last of its tar surface as if searching for a new identity.
D
This was hugely evocative and moving Dave. I think you should go with a memoir. I am choosing to leave out things that are too hurtful in mine.
Hi my friend. Meg did suggest that I write a memoir. I have my doubts - although, taken together, the volume of work on my Substack site is memoir-ish.
Taking out the things that may be hurtful is part of the problem. Sometimes, some of those things are central to your life. If you can do it - fabulous. I'm still thinking it through.
I do intend to write something longer. A lot more thinking needed though....
D :)
I get what you say, Dave. Some things for me remain unsaid.
Some memories need to be forgotten/ some memories are bittersweet/ the best ones last forever
just dimmed with the passage of time