Jugiong vernacular is a rusty island fence post,
recovered from the old railway,
Which bought clattering Modernity,
To the valley and the bend in the river.
Is also an abandoned butcher’s shop,
Its skeleton walls remaining, and
Its meat hooks chiming
a sad gentle song
Is a sharp grid of canola yellow, and
a squinting bright corro-shed,
abrupt against curvaceous hills,
the seed sower gone to work another field
Is the fist walking path become a dirt track,
Become a bitumen runway, and
noisy airbrakes washing off too-much speed down the old hill,
then gears grinding up the new highway.
Jugiong vernacular
is puffy white clouds over green,
evaporating before summer yellow and, coming fast now,
Iron red horizons and skies of white heat.
Jugiong vernacular is a translucent rider at dawn
Sunlight passing right through man and horse,
The soft clop clop,
receding into the valley landscape.
It is a the valley remembered because seen
through primrose and lime wash, and
just edging above - a white cross -
Reminding us the people pray here
And quietly, softly, as the light
Passes right through him and
falls upon the canvas
We find the artist keeping alive the Jugiong vernacular.
