Personal Choice 17
- jeffpoet
- Oct 2, 2022
- 1 min read

The Ruined Homestead
White birds, frightened from silver grass,
whose blood-rose breasts and wings are thrown
like petals settling down the pass,
flower the ruined homestead’s stone.
Rise from the fallen walls and scream,
crested, from the stark dead gum;
shatter the crystal of the morning’s dream
where I, across your landscape, come.
Roofless, the broken stonework frames
red arid hills, a valley where
the ghost-gums writhe like whitened flames
and desert-oaks droop their dark hair.
And when, in the crucible of the hills
the molten day has died, there stands
under the blaze of stars that fills
its night, a house not made with hands.
Roland Robinson
Roland Edward Robinson OAM (1912 – 1992) was an Australian poet, writer and collector of Australian Aboriginal myths. Robinson was born in Ireland in 1912. At the age of 9, in 1921 he was brought to Australia. After only a brief education he worked in various jobs, mainly in the bush as a roustabout, boundary-rider, railway fettler, fencer, dam-builder, gardener and as a lifelong love - a ballet dancer. He served in the Australian Army. His love of the Australian landscape and everyday scenes were inspiration for his poetry. He was one of the most dedicated poets to the Jindyworobak Movement.

This for me is one of the really outstanding Australian poems. Robinson’s use of metaphor and imagery is masterful and the hyperbole of the last line just so redemptive
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