By John Nelson Shaw
“The young girl stood beside me. I saw not what her young eyes could see:
A light, she said, not of the sky lives somewhere in the orange tree.”

Lotus ink/lotus crayon/Murray river gumtree bark wash/gold leaf on paper
un-framed
60x60cm

My work is a seemingly monochromatic patchwork of layered textures, creating an Aussie orange tree at sunset.  

My work is holistic and environmental: I distill my own inks from The Mallee: black from flower petal ash, brown washes of eucalyptus bark, crayon skies created from natural beeswax, sienna sunset from collected riverbank stones.  A glimmer of gold leaf shines.

The Orange Tree

The young girl stood beside me. I saw not what her young eyes could see:
A light, she said, not of the sky lives somewhere in the Orange Tree.

Is it, I said, of east or west?
The heartbeat of a luminous boy who with his faltering flute confessed only the edges of his joy?

Was he, I said, born to the blue in a mad escapade of Spring
Ere he could make a fond adieu to his love in the blossoming?

Listen! the young girl said. There calls no voice, no music beats on me;
But it is almost sound: it falls this evening on the Orange Tree.

Does he, I said, so fear the Spring ere the white sap too far can climb?
See in the full gold evening all happenings of the olden time?

Is he so goaded by the green?
Does the compulsion of the dew make him unknowable but keen asking with beauty of the blue?

Listen! the young girl said. For all your hapless talk you fail to see there is a light, a step, a call, this evening on the Orange Tree.

Is it, I said, a waste of love Imperishably old in pain,
Moving as an affrighted dove Under the sunlight or the rain?

Is it a fluttering heart that gave too willingly and was reviled?
Is it the stammering at a grave, the last word of a little child?

Silence! the young girl said. Oh why, why will you talk to weary me?
Plague me no longer now, for I am listening like the Orange Tree.