Winner: Quandongs


I remember days at La Pa

going out with the Aunties

to look for quandongs

growing on the hill

 

Selecting bright bush cherries

ready to drop

─ a bite too bitter still

for my sweet tooth

 

The women would laugh

as they sorted

patting hot-pink fruit laced

with wild honey

 

teaching us bush tucker way

 

Each ball rolled on the tongue

─ sent a sudden shock

to the back of my throat

A sweet sour hit

─ the after-taste

perfumed

with blossom

 

Image: Giuseppe Milo / flickr

Brenda Saunders

Brenda Saunders is a poet and visual artist of Aboriginal and British descent. She has published three collections of poetry and her work has appeared in major anthologies and journals, including Australian Poetry JournalOverlandSoutherly, and Best Australian Poems in 2013 and 2015 (Black Inc). She has received numerous prizes including the Mick Dark Varuna Environmental Writers’ Fellowship, the Banjo Patterson Poetry Prize, and was a finalist in the prestigious Aesthetica Prize (UK) and the International Vice-Chancellors Poetry Prize (University of Canberra). She is a member of DiVerse Poets who write and perform their ekphrastic poetry in Sydney art galleries.

More by Brenda Saunders ›

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