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Coolabah, No.11, 2013, ISSN 1988-5946, Observatori: Centre d’Estudis Australians, Australian 
Studies Centre, Universitat de Barcelona 

 

  114 

Poems 1 
 
 

Teri Merlyn 
 

 
Copyright©2013 Teri Merlyn. This text may be archived and 
redistributed both in electronic form and in hard copy, 
provided that the author and journal are properly cited and 
no fee is charged. 

 
 

Narrabeen Dreaming 
 
 

There’s a house somewhere 
in our collective memories, 

where white sails fletch a blue horizon, 
and washing flaps lazily on the Hills 

against a priceless backdrop; 
of a time when endless days  
drip minutes like a leaky tap 

and the wash of waves 
sings a wombsong, 

lulling us into reverie 
of afternoon naps that 

make new days from old. 
 

They were once as young as we, 
our lives merging into this house 

as it lays alone on the dunes. 
Neighbours all gone, 

ghosts of holiday’s past 
ululate in empty lots 

and we slip into its dreaming, 
of laughter for its own sake, 
skin peeling like paperbark, 

icecream melting on salty tongues 
time melts like Dali’s clocks. 

  

                                                             
1 This paper is a contribution to the Placescape, placemaking, placemarking, placedness … 
geography and cultural production Special Issue of Coolabah, edited by Bill Boyd & Ray Norman. The 
Special Issue is supported by two websites: http://coolabahplacedness.blogspot.com.au and 
http://coolabahplacedness-images.blogspot.com.au/. 



Coolabah, No.11, 2013, ISSN 1988-5946, Observatori: Centre d’Estudis Australians, Australian 
Studies Centre, Universitat de Barcelona 

 

  115 

 
A kite surfer-laden breeze brings 
croaks of boys, squeaks of girls 

interspersed with throbs 
from juke-box cars of another era 

to us, eternal now inhabitants,  
lost in the warp and weft 

of the house and its dreaming; 
salt-washed stone, silvered wood 

dead orange jessamin, live oleander. 
Driftwood moments of lazy 

breakfasts meandering into daydream 
lunches, drifting into teas of various descriptions. 

 
Small joys echo in odd corners 
of a kitchen that doesn’t work, 
spaces of mysterious purpose  

built by a man who liked to be handy. 
How many children, friends, 

cousins, aunties, uncles and ring-ins 
lay in the bath wondering why 
it was the wrong way around; 

went to open the side windows 
at the noreaster’s knock,  

found them fixed, and sighed 
minor irritations, soon forgot. 

 
This was the last of its kind. 
A mnemonic for missing kin.  

Each floorboard trembling 
with long gone footsteps  

of an endless to-ing and fro-ing 
by husbands, wives, children, 

home from the sea, off to school, 
from the shop, to the factory 
windows waiting, watching,  
visitors, passers-by, anyone?   

Now the house is gone  
and it’s memories are homeless. 

  



Coolabah, No.11, 2013, ISSN 1988-5946, Observatori: Centre d’Estudis Australians, Australian 
Studies Centre, Universitat de Barcelona 

 

  116 

 
We drive past often, 

eyes straining, hearts yearning, 
longing for an evocation, 
some vestige to remind 
others of it’s passing; 
all those lives, stories, 

grassed over, as if they never were. 
It wasn’t a pretty house. 

No artist preserved its image,  
and when we are gone 

no one will know it was there. 
No one will care. 

 
 

*** 
 
 
Christmas Tree 
 
 
The Stringy Bark in my backyard 

is in a slow dance of deshabille, 
decorating all about with bronze streamers 

as it has, at this time, every year, here. 
 
In the fecund moistness of our northern origins 

Life slumbers, sequestered beneath a chill cloak,  
and our ancestors celebrated the persistent evergreen of pine  
 at its darkest moment, as the cycle turns towards the sun. 
 
Two millennia past, in a distant, desert land, 

the dream of a kinder kind of human lifted roots in  
a dance of angels and air, with each spin spreading, taking  
 us further from Nature’s pattern, into the pulse of Man. 
 
In the Stringy Bark’s home, ancient rhythms 

call seasons to us in a quieter, deeper note, 
in their gentle shedding, a stately waltz of renewal  

that has taken two centuries for us to recognize. 
 
 



Coolabah, No.11, 2013, ISSN 1988-5946, Observatori: Centre d’Estudis Australians, Australian 
Studies Centre, Universitat de Barcelona 

 

  117 

 
 
 

Teri Merlyn (b. Sydney 1949) is a creature of her own creation. A feral child, jettisoned into 
independent life at fifteen, she developed self-taught couturier skills by her early twenties, 
designing and making for private clients, including Australia's first glitter band, Hush, and in 
designer label partnerships until 1990, when she entered academe at UNE and fell in love 
with the life of the mind. However, the adage, ‘timing is everything' made its verity felt when 
she graduated with her PhD (Writing Revolution, Griffith University 2004) on the history of 
the British radical literary tradition, its nexus with working class literacy, and role in the 
development of Australian culture, just in time to join the queue of left-wing intellectuals 
losing tenure with the rise of the vocationalist paradigm in universities. Having long written 
poetry that received acclaim from the 'FF Brigade' (friends & family), she has turned now to 
play that string on her bow as a third, and hopefully timely, career option, kick-starting with a 
Masters (Research) in English (Poetry) book project with the University of Sydney under the 
supervision of Judith Beveridge. (Email: teri.merlyn@optusnet.com.au)