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Keywords: Gippsland

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The enigma of the island

    • Ian C Smith
    • 23 June 2015
    3 Comments

    Our salt-blasted car rental veteran guzzled fuel, gearbox a disaster gasping past wallaby roadkill leaving the dramatic volcanic mountainscape for glimpses of carved bays, Crusoe beaches contrasting with weathered scrub, still farms.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    A faithful woman visits me weekly

    • Ian C. Smith
    • 18 November 2014
    1 Comment

    Supplying food, whisky, news, loving sex. All this on a pine-scented mountain. I trim my stark white beard, shampoo, sweep, spray, squeegee and swipe. The hour you drive up our steep hill I open our front gates like a greeting.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Rural prayer

    • Kevin Gillam, Deanne Davies and James Walton
    • 02 July 2013

    There is no balm for the yearning of eucalypts. Candlebarks stretch up this vaulted wanting. Dahlias splash an insane chant over a paddock, a calf nods and backs into a startled wander. One day she might raspily lick the mystery of my supplicant salty palm.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    My father's memorial service gets edgy

    • Ian C. Smith
    • 21 May 2013
    1 Comment

    Smoke pours from a meter box outside. Firemen scurry like comic extras, unable to locate the smoke's source. Spaced apart in orderly rows we swivel, casting sideways glances through tall windows. Organist and minister struggle with focus.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Dreams of pulling Australia out of its slump

    • Ian C. Smith
    • 31 January 2012

    Although most are probably long dead, they seem happy, even excited. Perhaps they will toss triumphant hats. The wind might favour their team, even steal tossed hats, but not hope.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Lesson for heretics

    • Various
    • 06 December 2011
    3 Comments

    Waiting, something opens without our willing it, without force ... A vastness of silent notes accompanies us, a symphony we have longed to hear of belief far beyond our interpretations ...

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Brother of a suicide and war dead

    • Ian C. Smith
    • 12 July 2011
    1 Comment

    His mother quoted Shakespeare, preferred her husband to their children, placing her faith in him, gin, and ghosts ... When she turned up breast cancer's card she hugged her suffering to herself.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Coastal communion

    • Gregory Day
    • 01 June 2011
    6 Comments

    In the tiny church built of ecumenical brick, with barely any aesthetic pleasure to distract from the humility of the message, Patrick and his cohort in both the earlier football match and in the communion to come, sat quietly, though with the telltale legs of novices swinging restlessly under the front pew.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Feathery fable

    • Fiona Douglas
    • 02 February 2011
    6 Comments

    She sits perfectly still, as if she has given up; happy for her end to come via a predator of any calibre. At the very least, she has lost the plot. The children and I spy on her from a distance. Then, as if a switch has been flicked, a sickening sinking feeling takes hold inside me.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Shark encounter

    • Vince Chadwick
    • 24 November 2010
    2 Comments

    The full moon illuminated the silky water and tepid sand like a disco ball. Rounding one corner suddenly we could see a kilometer of open beach and, in the middle distance, two men standing around a fire. The group mentality did not counsel caution. But what were they doing here?

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    How my English teacher saved my life

    • Fiona Douglas
    • 30 June 2010
    18 Comments

    It occurred to me to approach my school English teacher. This would be normal enough, if not for the fact that she had been my teacher some three decades prior. From the fog of my depression medication I somehow found my phone and emailed her from my bed.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Photographing Paris

    • Ian C. Smith
    • 11 May 2010

    mapping the cobbled Parisian dawn .. in search of juxtaposition .. stairways, upturned street vendors' carts .. unglamorous prostitutes, pedlars .. the stillness of odd, aged architecture .. angles, spaces awash with light

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