Almanac Poetry: The Gift (for Noel Pearson)

 

I met Jane Greenwood when she took a risk and employed me as a very part-time English teacher at St Peter’s Lutheran College in Indooroopilly in 1992. We all sat in Lohe House Staff Room and it took me just a few days to realise I was in a very good place. I was with wonderful, generous, talented people – some of them great story-tellers, especially over a fag on the balcony which looked into the upper branches of what I called the Chemistry tree. One teacher was Mike Selleck, who by massive coincidence, was Dips O’Donnell’s uncle. Just sitting with such people had a significant impact.

Jane was head of the English department and ran it more like a university department where  she was on top of everything but gave her staff freedom and autonomy within the constraints of the syllabus – although big characters like Mike had much bigger minds, and intentions, than satisfying the demands of the Department of Education in Queensland. Like Jane, they were all about the Big Picture.

On meeting Jane – I’ll never forget the moment, it was on the steps of the chapel, and Jane radiated Life – I was immediately part of it all. Her welcome was natural and generous and genuine (without question).

I was about to turn 30 and these guys, entering middle age, had so many stories. They would mention books and poems and songs and films and brought them into the conversation in a way that dinner party aggrandisers don’t.

They encouraged me to write.

I thought they should write and I have never stopped saying to Jane, over the last thirty years, “You’ve gotta write that story.” Maybe she has been tapping away, when time permits. I suspect, like Mike Selleck’s poetry, they’re in a folder somewhere.

Now Jane has sent me a few of her poems – which I am so happy about. (Preposition at the end of the sentence, Jane, because I’m trying to make this intro conversational in tone.)

Jane loved her students and continues to love them.

When sitting in Lohe House, I recall conversations about former students who’d bob up in the news or around the traps. One was Noel Pearson. Mike and Jane had enormous respect for Noel and always said he was immensely talented – one of the great thinkers and writers to go through St Peter’s.

The first of Jane’s poems is a tribute to Noel Pearson.

JTH

 

 

 

The Gift

For Noel Pearson

 

In my class
Sits a boy with maroon eyes:
That’s his description.
The boy pretends to sleep
But I know he is listening.

 

Sometimes, he sits up straight
With legs outstretched, staring
Into the distance of his mind’s landscape.
Sometimes he curls up tight
In the circle he has drawn about himself.
The boy pretends not to see
But I know he is watching.

 

The others in my class chatter
Or write or sigh, but the boy
Hears the palm-tree branches
Rasp their tune outside. They speak to him
Of languorous days beyond the prison of this room.
He takes his stub of pencil and he listens
To the dreaming in his head.

 

He flees from here, far from the concrete towers,
Home to the dusty streets and long afternoons,
To the place where river meets the sea
And the long swell beckons. Home—to the flame trees,
The banana trees in thickets
Where boys play cricket in back yards
And mothers’ hands are white with flour.

 

He writes. The cockatoos shriek in ancient voice
Above the red-dust roads.
I follow their wheeling flight
Into the circle of his days,
The vision of the flame-bright trees,
The seabirds cawing on the coasts
Where the waves carouse the wind:
This vision is his gift of words to me.

 

I follow the chanting gulls;
South they come, to fade and disappear
Into the towers of the city that is mine.

 

In my class
Sits a boy who is writing a gift.
He pretends not to speak but he knows I am listening.

 

 

 

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Comments

  1. Colin Ritchie says

    Fantastic poem about such an inspirational person Jane. You must feel extremely privileged and delighted to have been involved in a part of Noel’s education, watching him grow to become the leader he now is.Thank you Jane, and welcome to the Footy Almanac.

  2. Rick Kane says

    Wow, that brought a tear to my eye.

    Jane, in your poem I could feel the warmth of your embrace, of Noel as a student, as a young man, of his dreaming, of The Dreaming, and of our futures. Thank you.

  3. What a wonderful piece of work. It really captured me. And its as good a description of indigenous connection and dreaming that I think I’ve ever read. At least as the white fellas understand it.

    He takes his stub of pencil and he listens. Magnificent.

    PS – JTH I have Mike Selleck’s folder.

  4. Inspiring. Beautiful. Please keep writing and sharing Jane. (And JTH’s intro says much about the fostering of community and the angels of our better nature.)
    Noel Pearson is a personal hero for his creed of support being linked to work that raises self belief. A virtuous circle. He has bravely walked a middle ground between the hard hearted Right and the soft headed Left.
    Have had a few people trying to argue complex constitutional grounds for opposing The Voice Referendum with me. My response has been “I’m not a constitutional lawyer so I’m not going to argue with you, but Noel Pearson strongly supports it – so do I. He is a man of wisdom and discernment who doesn’t tolerate fools and I trust him.”
    From little things………

  5. E.regnans says

    Oh, thank you Jane.
    Thanks JTH.
    Wonderfull words.

    It seems as though this young boy had the great fortune to be be seen.

  6. John Harms says

    Love it Jane.

  7. Jane Greenwood says

    Thank you all so much. I’m quite overcome by this generous response. Noel loved History and English, and always asked formidable questions to keep you on your toes. I cast him as Hathorne in The Crucible – as amazing a picture of institutionalised, we?l-intentioned evil as you could find. He gets it.

  8. Love this. Absolutely love it.

    Thanks for sharing, Jane. Superb.

  9. DBalassone says

    Beautiful.

  10. Jarrod_L says

    Really enjoyed this, Jane. Thanks for sharing.

  11. Russel P Hansen says

    What a beautiful piece, Jane

    As we exchanged messages about at the time, Noel’s speech in the Dron auditorium at St Peters Lutheran College last year, for reconciliation week, was truly magnificent, it was a privilege to hear him speak from the heart, about you, Mike and others

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZYfjHXASks

  12. Jane Greenwood says

    Thank you all! I always knew this was a pretty special young man – I used to leave his essays and stories to the last in the pile as my reward for another week of marking … they were so beautifully written and thoughtfully argued: he has always had something to say. And thanks, Russ, for being in touch in real time on that amazing day when Noel last spoke at school. I was very moved.

  13. Frank Taylor says

    Stunning.
    Arresting.
    May I echo and amplify the comments above.
    Thanks Jane
    Frank

  14. Peter Schumacher says

    An inspirational poem about an inspirational man.

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