Evensong of the Rainforest Girl



Evensong of the rainforest girl

Elegy for Megan Rose Gifford
19/09/1990-18/07/2000

Canto 1

Whilst your mummy and I greedily sub letted tenants
in a cavernous Penrith garage,
your song whispers through Northern trees
that I was in love with a mirage.

Somehow I heard you when your mummy looked through me,
her eyes filled more with voices than dreams;
your song skips down a Northern track,
that your death was not as it seems.

When the Devil spoke to her, mummy had a different name;
fifteen years previous near a sleepy country town
where your laughter heartened Northern faces
yet she effected their black eyes from brown.

Please understand, Megan, that mummy had the darkest shadow
that your brightness could never extinguish,
she heard your song from her Northern porch
and relinquished the power to distinguish.

You’d seen mummy this way before, in a humid Cairns hospital,
where hugs were exchanged between journeys,
like tomorrow you’ll travel to a Northern school-
that oasis where avidity comes early.

“Goodnight, mummy.” your song skipped upon the porch’s weather beaten timbers
into a bedroom where darkness not of the night
will consume with whispers this Northern house,
until silence is assured once the rope is tight.

Mummy woke and saw your eyes were no longer black
but another colour on the sheets puzzled and annoyed
while around her morning shadows from a Northern sun
crept like witnesses around lifeless toys.

Close the curtain, wash those sheets, mummy heard the whisper scream-
Wake her up, get to boarding school, continued in her head.
She then carried you into ruminating Northern trees
intoning your song with tears for the dead…..  

Canto 2

…..No I wasn’t dead, Shannon, she chased me.
-my song again wakes you on this Penrith morning-
Through the house, the garden, the Northern brae
why was the rope cold yet still burning?

Don’t believe her with that quiescent demeanour;
I was hunted as I tried to grasp a startled horse,
but he only murmured his head at this Northern exorcism
that bloodied a parched watercourse.

She left me there for the rainforest to claim,
I watched her fade through a sanguinary eye-
a receding figure against the Northern dawn,
back to that porch with barely a sigh.

They found us there, one hundred meters apart.
She wore her brightest dress, me with darkest rope.
Sheets were washed, a Ute prepared for a Northern Tip;
I was tagged as rubbish by this misanthrope.

Why do you weep for me now when she never did?,
asleep with her rum and Coke, sex and cigarette.
Why do you need to visit a Northern cemetery?
so you can repatriate her perceived regret?

Do not write of watersheds she deprived me of,
don’t speak of love, children and old age,
respect that I lie in six feet of Northern sand
yet walk amongst ancient trees that assuage.

Canto 3

I perambulate the forest as a morning breeze,
I am the rockpool, cedar, fern and orchid
I do not exist as a Northern malady
nor am I a stripling courting the morbid.

I will take your hands and guide your souls,
on the day you are both free of earthly poisons,
so you may breathe this primordial silence
that restored my life for future seasons.

I no longer run from the unexplainable,
my horse isn’t startled when we chat near the stain;
like carefree moss, I grow but never age
for I’m washed daily in this forest of rain.

I must leave you now, a new bird has entered
that I must welcome to allay her anxious fear,
for I know how cool shadows darken the soul
so I must wipe away her petrified tears.

Shannon Cullen

About this poem

This poem describes a murder in the Australian bush of a 9 year old girl whose mother I was dating many years after the event. My shock at finding this out about someone you loved from their past was painful. She is forgotten and reaching to find her song long lost in time and location. It is an elegy to an extinguished voice who I hope is “heard” through this tribute.

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Written on November 23, 2022

Submitted by Shannoncullen2 on January 09, 2023

Modified on March 23, 2023

3:29 min read
51

Quick analysis:

Scheme X AX BCDC EFGF HIXI XJXJ KDXE XLXL GXXX XMDM ENON OXEB HPXP XQXQ XRER XSXS DTET XUXU KVSV AXXX
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 3,576
Words 699
Stanzas 19
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Shannon Cullen

Born in Sydney, I find inspiration in everyday events that shape and change people I’ve been previously published in The Lyric (US) and several periodicals here in Australia. My fav poets are Shelley, Oscar Wilde, Hart Crane and Kenneth Slessor. more…

All Shannon Cullen poems | Shannon Cullen Books

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Discuss the poem Evensong of the Rainforest Girl with the community...

2 Comments
  • IndigoHeart
    Spectacular composition, cadence and imagery. Haunting and lyrical, this piece coaxes the reader into a spiraling descent of beautiful yet crushing madness.
    LikeReply1 year ago
  • impartialfrankie
    I chose this poem because I could visualize every aspect of what was being said. I couldn’t sense the emotion in which it was written in, and it was relatable in a lot of ways. This poem was fluid, cohesive, and parallel. 
    LikeReply1 year ago

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"Evensong of the Rainforest Girl" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/150429/evensong-of-the-rainforest-girl>.

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