by Loine Sweeney
There are many ways that your Adelaide Park Lands can INSPIRE, providing, as they do, the opportunity to step into nature right around the City of Adelaide.
The nature of your Adelaide Park Lands can also prompt creative inspiration, in many forms, from artwork to the written word and music.
We’re inviting poets to become inspired, and to make a contribution to help inspire YOU. Here’s the first in what we hope will be the first in a series of Park poems.
Secret Garden
by Barbara Preston
Soft water trickles,
drips and flows from bamboo
tumbling over rocks and slate.
Here in the Himeji Garden on the southern edge of the city
there is peace, quiet and tranquility.
Is this what the people of Himeji wanted to give us
in a world of conflict and turbulence?
Here we are surrounded by small temples
and trees of ancient beauty
We forget where we are
Lose a sense of time and place
Move deeper into ourselves
And quieten our hearts.
The slow drone of nearby traffic
Momentarily brings us back
Until a trembling Hibiscus flower
Once again stills our mind.
Photo credits (from top): Rod Lewis, Tully Haines, Chris Colhoun, Carmela Felis
A member of Adelaide’s Friendly Street Poets, Barbara Preston is a writer and former teacher. Read more about Barbara here:
Barbara Preston
Make a poetry contribution
Whether you’re a seasoned poet, a first-timer, or a school student, you’re invited to share your Park Lands-inspired poetry with our thousands of readers, published here on this blog.
Please submit your poem, together with a photo of yourself and what part of your Adelaide Park lands you'd like pictured alongside your poem, to our Editor, Shane Sody: shane.sody@gmail.com
