Beyond Beef Festival, Nimbin, 1992
Image © Elke Anstey

A Day in the Life

who did come upon the village of Nimbin
in the valley of Mulgum
in the dark age of shattered trees and
slaughtered beef and banana spray
and inbred feudal lords -
and the scouts did call and trumpet through the land
of this company of rainbow power, of this
one altemative way
that coursed and curled their clan from
the towns and the city-smoke

and they supp'd upon the sacred mushroom
and slept face-first in the dung;
'twas a band of gypsies
playing in the rain
and they gave the seed unto each other
and they filed the government papers
and they moved in cars and vans and sandals
and barefoot and bare-breasted
upon the land,
some came runmng
gladly, or madly bent

changing names and colours and gods
changing the guards
into grass castle kings and herbal flings and a
free
flight of raining forest
a moondance of market days
of flood and fire and frost,
the cascade of sleep
the breasting of babies
over the hills of the faraway tree;

and in the time they turned to find the
tweezers to tug the tick from the
tip of their dick
they had children, and children' s children
that grew a coat of many colours about them
that waxed in the old wave of their
waning Aquarian waters
that washed and fed the child
that poured the life in the day
of a day in the life of Nimbin.

David Hallett, poet and musician, Nimbin