Whispered by Eucalypts by David Terelinck

​Below is a full copy of David Terelinck's tanka sequence which is included in Issue 6. To watch and listen to his poetry reading, you can purchase a copy of the video journal here.

Whispered by Eucalypts
​
​(For my grandfather, Aubrey John Joseph "Jack" Neilsen, reported missing in September 1961, and his skeletal remains discovered in Hornsby bushland in the last week of May 2011. The inquest into his disappearance and remains was held on May 20, 2013.
​
Remains Found
​
those bones of fifty years
no longer
worthy of news
as Oslo mourns

DNA samples –
the power behind
three linked letters:
the pain or relief
of knowing . . .

Christmas
in four short weeks
—gifted
with the results
of your forensics

a stranger
tweets your name
and story . . .
is there anyone left
to bury his remains?

undisturbed
for half a century
from beneath
a blanket of mossy peat
you play at Rip Van Winkle

scattered pennies
in the undergrowth
you didn’t see
decimalisation
. . . or grandchildren

my mother
has already called
the funeral home
finding . . . and losing you
in the same six months

long bones
bleached by decades
of sun and moon –
is it possible to miss
someone you never knew?

your daughter
stores your wife’s ashes
on the mantle –
will we ever know
the reason for your return?

another year
passes in waiting
for the inquest . . .
your lesson to us
still one of patience

the yellowed curl
of your paper smile –
missing
three times longer
than my mother knew you

long years of blame
in rain-swept darkness . . .
the sediment
of memory thickened
with every cursed name

the coroner rules
an unknown cause of death,
your peaceful rest
held hostage for two years
within our temporal world

family bible,
she records her father’s name
and date of death
the crack of a branch
laden with ice . . .

your eulogy
whispered by eucalypts
the mystery
of sunlit emptiness
and jewelled night skies

First publication credit is Slow growing Ivy, 2014