Rohan Buettel: ‘The Forecourt’ and ‘Wedgetail’

The Forecourt
(at the National Gallery of Australia)

a broad entrance, a sense of open space
entire worlds in this forecourt
monumental, ready to be explored
enter anywhere—your transport awaits

the metal globe with pitted silver surface
lines incised, a brown patina defines
dreaming kangaroos, goanna, birds, crocodile
and sea creatures from tropic climes

an inverted obelisk with broken shaft
balances on the point of a pyramid
plucked from the earth, the cross of their kiss
an impossible stress of imagined triangles

seven brown pears in weathering steel
more than human in their proportion
lean together, apart, desiring, denying
their stems intact, skin splitting where the flesh is ripe

in a cropped pyramid of grass sits a basalt stupa
domed interior with oculus, within without
reach it through a parted sea, when day is dying
sit quiet and feel the slow darkening of the sky

Rohan Buettel

Wedgetail

evolution has engendered
a dynamic pursuit machine
an avian apex predator
each feather precision engineered
to maximise performance
aerobatic agility
for display or diving at prey

with its wings fully extended
silently the eagle glides
while mobbed from either side
by two black ravens, intent,
beaks targeting outer wingtips
where any successful sally
will damage its control

Rohan Buettel