Nullarbor Nymph



Dorothy Hewett gets it right,
the inviting madness of the desert,
where we expect to meet
a mad old woman dressed in black
pushing an English pram
a nun with a walking stick
a woman with a string of camels
mirages floating in heat
a foot above the ground
visitants lost on the scrubby 
horizon where no line marks
the possible.
Nullarbor is the place we go
when there is nowhere else.


We came to a fork in the track.
Old Eyre Highway or Old Coach Road?
Our choice was less travelled.
When the hot sun was dipping
Wild-life started emerging from their day-time hideaways.
A mob of kangaroos bounded across.
Then a girl.
We hadn't seen anyone in days.
But there she was.
When the roos caught sight of us, they took off into the scrub.
The girl stopped dead, 100 yards in front of us.
A curious but hard look on her face.
She didn't blink, and for a second, none of us dared to move.
Her blond hair moved very slightly in the evening breeze.
Suddenly, bare-footed, she darted to the left.
We sat there like a couple of stunned mullets
Staring at the spot she'd disappeared into the bush.

For the next 30 minutes we half walked, half ran,
Following the roo tracks, calling out to her.
When the last of the light went, we quit,
Pleading with ourselves that she must be all right,
That we were only a day away from civilization,
And we could get help for her there.

The next day we burst into Eucla, covered in dust.
Hearing our concerns for the girl, local man Norm drawled:
A girl had been spotted
Search parties had failed to find her
Some were still looking
Others thought she seemed happy out there
She'd become a bit of a legend.
Norm didn't say anything else.
He didn't need to.
We could hear him thinking it.
Another one.


.....the car lifted on the Nullarbor
     and a whole family probed by aliens
     (the car has been impounded
      in America, the case is pending)
.....a conspiracy 
     brewed in caves deep
     beneath the Nullarbor Plain
     which has something
     to do with the Americans
     the evidence:
     a photograph,
     fuzzy about the edges
.....in the faraway continent of Oceania
     in the vast plains of the Nullarbor
     in the darkness of moonlit night
     appears the Nullarbor Nymph
Wild and strong
Run, kangaroo girl, run


Sitting in the Eucla pub one night
(Population in 1970:
 'eight people, four dogs,
  and a swearing parrot')
a group of blokes sinking beers;
three roo shooters and
an unemployed PR man from Perth.
From the bottom of their schooners
the Nullarbor Nymph was born.
   He said there was something
   he wanted me to do
   for a bit of a laugh.
   He wanted me to get my gear off
   slip on my bikini and 
   dress up in these roo skins
   he'd just caught
   (I had to coat myself in talcum powder
    because they were still fresh and wet).
   I had no idea what would happen
   to the photos;
   No idea it would go so wide.
Within days it was international news,
the story of this feral woman,
blond, beautiful, half naked,
who ran with the desert reds
and was spotted by some kangaroo shooters
out in the middle of nowhere.
   One memorable bloody night
   we organized with a bus driver
   to wake his passengers up
   as he slowed down into Eucla
   and look out for the Nymph.
   Well, our girl did her moonlit flit
   across the front of the bus
   and the tourists got their 'sighting'.
   (Some of the women were so shook up 
    they left sandwiches and milk on the
    side of the road so she didn't starve).
"We never made a cent out of it
 and nobody ever got hurt.
 We was just sitting around having a drink
 and we cooked up a yarn
 about this nymph bird out in the bush".


the maddening glimpse
the elusive girl
is never captured
lone, free, untamed,
 she carries within her
the burden of pursuit
The Wild Woman
who forever outsmarts him
who would make her prey
she is not new 
to the desert



N-yeeru-na, Hunter of Women,
is Orion, the giant,
coward of the skies.
His shame is the
Awful Example, the Moral
of man-making ceremony.
Night after night he chases the 
Mingari girls, the giggling desert devils,
the Seven Sisters of Pleiades,
but he is thwarted by their elder sister
Kambu-gudha, the V in Taurus.

N-yeeru-na dances, resplendent,
his body reddened by lust and fire,
in feathers, red ochre, knotted hair-belt
with whitened penis rope,
his stamping feet raising the dust.
Mingari return from gathering food
N-yeeru-na beckons them to his camp
Mingari huddle together and refuse
N-yeeru-na tramples the ground,
he strides them down,
his gestures angry and obscene.
Mingari, in fear of him, trip and fall
and tremble, spinning like a swarm of bees
in silver clouds of pollen to confuse him.
Nearer comes N-yeeru-na, threatening,
snatching ― the Mingari run ― 
but Kambu-gudha, elder sister, stands
naked before him, her feet and legs 
wide apart. She dares him with her 
yam-stick quivering fire, her left foot
filled with fire-magic to blind him.
Exciting him, flaunting her sex,
she shows her contempt in calling 
a line of dingo pups between them.

N-yeeru-na is now jeered and taunted 
by the neighbouring stars and constellations:
Jurr-jurr the Night Owl in his hollow chuckle
Weerloo the Curlew, screaming
Kara the Redback Spider
viciously stinging his prancing feet
Maala and Kanyala the Two Pointers,
pointing their derision
Babba the Dingo flings himself at N-yeeru-na
savagely swinging him by his pubic tassle,
now east, now west
Meera the Moon mocks his humiliation
and all the Camps in the Sky are
ringing with ribald laughter.

N-yeeru-na's fire grows dim,
his guts are gone,
his fame as a mighty hunter,
his manhood.
Pale and weak, he limps away to the west,
with all the Mingari women 
screaming their triumph and scorn,
hunting him.
Kambu-gudha, the V in Taurus, wins!



                                                                                                                                                                      

Poems 'plundered':  "On the Nullarbor", Dorothy Hewett
                    "Glare", John Kinsella, Visitations
                    "Sparklers, Hawk, Electric Trains", John    
                             Kinsella, Visitations
                    "The Wheel Turns", VasantaMala

Other sources:      "Nullarboring? No bloody way!", Mickie & Cassie,
                           The Nullarbor-Track Trailer, 18 Mar 2019
                    "The Second Stage of the Nullarbor Nymph", Dora 
                           Dallowitz, 1993/2005, Thesis Univ SA
                    "Kabbarli: A Personal Memoir of Daisy Bates",
                           Ernestine Hill,1973
                    "Seven Sistas", Craft West Touring Expedition 
                           Contributing Artists Inspiration Site
                                                                                                                      


 

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