Mountain Secrets

The Gully  

the creek chatters with small rocks
as it slithers along    decanted
from a swamp    succulent
as ten thousand soaking sponges
fringed with ferns   lichens   mosses
sedges   with silver dew

the rustle of a lyre bird
singing the land back to healing
mimics a birdsong-world
and conceals a secret
a mountain secret  

there was a time in The Gully
when the lyrebird was silent
and the wind mimicked a deep howl
and the earth grieved and raged
for its evicted people
its ravaged concreted land 

today the lyre bird’s song rolls back
a many layered history
the Gundungurra and Darug people
lead us out of a amnesic fog
with a remember story –
               a redemptive pathway into now

by Colleen Keating

*The Gully, An Aboriginal Place in Katoomba. In the 50’s made into the Catalina Race track.

My poem The Gully is written on the history of an area in Katoomba which was a meeting ground for three Aborigine tribes before colonisation and after Warragamba Dam was build when their movement  was blocked many settled there on what was then the outskirts of the Katoomba town .  A Fun park was developed, a lake even a Catalina Plane was floated on the lake there and people were moved off from their homes  for a Race track which was built disturbing the head water of the Katoomba Fall that feeds the Jamison Valley . 

Now fortunately it has been returned to the and is very sacred to walk around and see and read  the history including remains of the track and where signs like Capstan Bend once hang.

The story is documented in a book called 

Sacred  Waters

 The story of the Blue Mountains Gully Aboriginal People 

        by 

Dianne Johnson