Still Point

Beth Clapton

Putuwá*



despite the fire


a gnawing chill remains


putuwá
in warming you


I feel a thaw in me

*“Putuwá” is a word of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. It was conveyed by Patyegarang, a Gamaraigal woman, to the astronomer William Dawes in the early days of European settlement. She described the words as meaning “to warm your hands by the fire and gently squeeze the fingers of another person”.

  • She rises when I am not looking, I glimpse her

    fleeing from the mirror – her eyes

    uncertain, caught between sage and wood

                what wood? you ask

    Beech nut, skin-puncturing, womb-soft

    burst open where the seed has fled

     

    I glance away and she returns, solemn

    among fallen leaves – autumn then

    or slow sodden winter. She shivers, eases

    her boot free of the mud. She is waiting

                what for? you ask

    For the dream she was chasing to alight

    on a stark branch that claws at steel sky;

    for this face to look at her

    those same eyes sunk in a delta

    of laughter and sorrow.

     

    Does she see me, so far in her future

    or only the robin, bright flashing over sleek bark

    sage-green, wood-brown

                I know that colour, you say

    leaning closer in the fading light.

  • Last spring we found the cottage in the hills again

    unchanged from years before when we adored the rough boards

    laughed in chill draughts and were uncertain whether

    curtains held back our light or the advancing night.

     

    Newly single, you slept for days while I ministered your silence.

    We watched the gum slow-peel on the sun-bright lawn

    burnt umber and deep moss-green bark nestled

    in crisp curls at the base, until stark and grey

    the slender trunk glowed in the dawn

    reaching to stroke the lightening sky.

     

    Your voice poured, sudden and sure,

    merging with the call of the currawong, you said

    honeyeaters have lost their song

    amidst a foreign flock they mimic what they hear –

    are never heard for who they are.

     

    Summer crept our way, and you grew stronger

    we walked through caves, ran fingers along ancient strata

    traced the slow, bright tears of stalactites

    reaching for the ground.

    You saw angels by torch light, claimed the stars

    died aeons ago and wondered

    where does night meet history?

     

    The last afternoon, we watched black swans

    drift in silent accord, their slow wake ruffled the sky

    mirrored in the lake. As the ripples faded before

    reaching the shore you said –

    they mate for life

    know each other’s shape and call

    but do swans feel love?

  • Bury me in folds of paperbark

    suede-soft it will be my winding sheet

    lower me into eternal dark

    make my bed where past and future meet.

     

    Swaddle me in rich and fragrant loam

    amidst the sightless creatures’ endless toil

    I have no need of any other home

    but find my rest within a house of soil.

     

    My skin to dress next summer’s butterfly

    my blood to colour bold chrysanthemums

    my tears in dew drops will collect the sky

    lit by fire of countless morning suns.

     

    When everyone, but you, forgets my name

    if there should be a flickering of pain

    seek me in the embers and the flame

    find me in the ocean and the rain.

Beth
Clapton

Beth lives in Sydney, which she acknowledges is on the unceded lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. She has an abiding love of words and a fascination with how memory and geography intersect, often encountering her earlier self on street corners and riverbanks where she enjoys taking a moment to reflect. Beth has had a number of poems published in Australian anthologies and the International Tanka Society journal from Japan. She was delighted to be runner up in the Calanthe Collective Prize for Unpublished Poetry in 2023 and winner in 2024.