Under the Night Sky: Selected Poems

By Brian Devlin

Six hand-written journals, crammed with travel notes and poems, had been carefully stored in a leather bag which the author had bought on his honeymoon in Mexico. Later on, these precious items were irretrievably damaged by water rising under an elevated house. It was a salutary reminder of the ephemeral nature of things; well, of how precarious it is for poems, handwritten on paper, to be stored in a tropical climate and exposed to the elements!

Encouraged by others to publish, the author thought it would be sensible to compile a digital collection of his poetry and to select 55 for publication in this modest volume.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Feb 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9781984508850

Brian Devlin

Brian Devlin lives in the Northern Territory. Since he relishes his private life—as much as he does his family and friends, travel, good food, well-crafted writing and chess—these poems have seldom been shared with the outside world. A small collection was initially pulled together for the Creative Writing Group, Darwin, but quite a few pieces have been added since then. The author is an adjunct professor at Charles Darwin University. For many years his professional work has focused on bilingual education, the Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages, and remote, rural schooling in the Asia-Pacific area. He and his family have been affiliated with the Yolu people in northeast Arnhem Land ever since he was adopted into the Gumatj clan by a distinguished elder in 1979.

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Copyright © 2023 by Brian Devlin.

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Rev. date: 03/09/2023

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This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade, or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

Bart Sanciolo has graciously permitted his painting, Night sky sight, to be reproduced on the front cover.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data

Under the night sky: Selected poems

ISSN:

Paper from responsible sources

For

Nancy,

Bet Leech (1919–2019),

Image3frontmatterco_fmt.jpg

and Arnold Zable, who said that it was time

to publish a book of these poems.

Acknowledgements are due to

the editors of the following publications in which some of these poems appeared: Melbourne University Magazine and Rotary Club of Darwin Sunrise Bulletin;

Amy and Liora Devlin-Aylott, for their original art work;

John Lucy and Nancy Devlin for their photographs;

ChatGPT for assistance with earlier versions of ‘The syndicate men and their cattle running free,’ and for suggesting the phrase, ‘Cattle Run of Woe’ in the last stanza;

the following dear people for their encouragement and feedback, whether in recent times or long ago: Helen Armstrong, Simon Aylott, Steven Bird, Frank Brennan, Vincent Buckley, Natalie Shevtzova, Damien Coleridge, Craig Devlin, Jennifer Devlin, Kevin Devlin, Michael Devlin, Nancy Devlin, Arthur van Eigen, Vida Goodvach, Richard Gough, Jayne Hockley, Belinda Jennings, Joy Kinslow-Harris, Terry Ngarritjan-Kessaris, Clare Kilgariff, John Lucy, Carmel Lawrence, Ellin Lede, Eric Lede, Anne-Marie Marias, Margot Moeckel, Patrick Morgan, Netanella Mizrahi, Tony O’Brien, Sandy Oldroyd, Joanne van Os, Jane Quin, Helen Richmond, Henry Rosenbloom, Ann Sanciolo, Bart Sanciolo, Karen Sinclair, Jack Tinapple and family, Will Tinapple and family, Julie U’Ren, Arnold Zable; and

these intellectual lodestars and constant sources of inspiration: Dante Alighieri, Vincent Buckley, John Donne, Khwāje Shams-od-Dīn Moḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e, Seamus Heaney, Boris Pasternak, Alexander Pushkin, Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, William Shakespeare, Rabindranath Tagore and Chris Wallace-Crabbe.

By the same author or editor

STEPHEN HARRIS—WRITER, EDUCATOR, ANTHROPOLOGIST. KANTRIMEN BLANGA MALABAT (OUR COUNTRYMAN)

HISTORY OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION IN THE NORTHERN TERRITORY: PEOPLE, PROGRAMS AND POLICIES

A GUIDE TO SMALL-SCALE RESEARCH

INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS FOR STUDENTS’ WRITING (YING YU LUN WEN XIE ZUO JIAO CHENG)

DIFFICULT EDUCATIONAL CONTEXTS

LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE IN A NORTHEAST ARNHEM

LAND SETTLEMENT

CONTENTS

King Parrot Creek

Chagall

Out of an Old Seashell

The Birth of A New Trust

She Came Bringing Fantasies

Lu, The Wanderer’s Hymn for Peace

Guide Me North Star on My Way

Shiraz

Pincushion Man

Irish Mist

Nostalgia

Camping

Carter and Dancer, Horse Clipper and Trainer¹

Back then, I’d Rather Farm with Him than Fish

At The Close of Day, December 31, 1970

How to Communicate A Warning Quietly in Order to Avoid Embarrassing The Teacher

A Child’s Mysteries

Kylie, The Rag Doll

If My Being Could Be Likened to A Light

Inspiration

Apitna (‘Almost’)

To Him Who Comes, Quietly Calling

A visit to The Temple in Autumn

Meditation

A year or so After The Cyclone

When I Pause to Think About The Five Precepts

In the Oxford Union during the Ides of March

Planet Earth

Raiders in The Dark

A Virtual Memorial for Harold

It is chiefly in Aran

A Poem for St Patrick’s Day

Morning Walk

Christmas 2000 has Been Cancelled

Eating Laksa at The Site of The First Local Horse Race

Time

One Imagines Water at An Old, Dry Well

The Importance of Finding Our Own Voice

The Northern Suburbs Mixed-Sex, Private Jewish Dance Group

My Mother’s 8⁰th

Excuse Me, Ego

Spring Came Late to ‘Siberia’ that Year

Great, Foaming,