Jack Cox - Dodge Rose

we pulled up at a bend in the river. the ragged back and forth deposits through the marl grass. rillenkarren. then the brittle red gums returned to the river margins. dad unrolled the tartan on a grassy patch under a gum tree and mother put out the crockery. x and the pilot pulled up in the sulky and he helped her out and x got to helping mother with the picnic and uncle jim unhooked the piebald and took it down for a drink.

what a lovely day. dad lit his pipe and lay down his back to a rock. the woodbine curling in the heat. pardon said x. i said did you have a nice ride. oh, yes. of course you understand it isnt that i distrust your driving mr shearsby. i understand, i understand completely mrs rose. a mother has a duty. it wasnt too rough for you was it greg, youll stand the ride back, wouldnt want to have to call on english to sew you up again either. ive fallen off faster horses. its a nice set of wheels dad slurred from halfway under his hat. got them here from our own delaney. will you have some cold lamb.

after the cabinet pudding mr shearsby went down to fill up the waterbag and grandfather took his satchel from the truck and shook out the little pick axes on the rug. this is the best place before wee jasper to find them. farmers around here been rooting them up for seventy years. one time we rode through wee jasper to give a message to one of grandfathers shearers who was working the off season finishing the dam at burrinjuck. he pointed along the valley to the rock shards jutting either side in broken rows, like the lean to wood and iron churches further in on the ridge around the dam. they were laid down flat i dont know how they got up like that. grandfather had shearers all over the country, building roads, planting pine trees, the carpenters in canberra in the early decade. he took a swig from the waterbag and put his hat on again. mother declined to move. she shook her kerchief at us from the shade and grandfather and mr shearsby walked ahead into the sunshine of the riverbank. dad and i followed close behind with x and uncle jim. we didnt have to go far. limestone. generally less valuable than the goldfields and nickel fields of kalgoorlie, kambala and norseman. theres much more of it than there looks isnt there. grandfathers and mr shearsbys imaginations were easily provoked. who was it said the art of digression. sills. of greenstone. meandering granite. archaean nodes. the geologists call them ghosts i believe or plutonic intrusions. or was it lava, fast as water. depends how viscous. a laccolith then. wha wha. with the. what are they called full of air. crows chasing one another in the empty sky. the marl grass crackling under our feet. grandfather pointed to a whorl in the rock. why these are sea creatures, said x.

indeed its a tidal deposit.

one doesnt know.

the river.

no.

the flood.

that was six years ago.

i think she means the other flood.

well hm, yes, the catastrophe theory. . would. . bring it into a more. . recognisable time frame. still a great wave should have crushed

we are as we were created.

dad lifted his eyebrows. he took his pipe out of his mouth then put it back in. grandfather began his diplomatic assault. he tapped at the rockface with the blunt side of the pickaxe. there was more water then. then there was less. now there is more again. no the same amount of water. well he explained it anyway. how its beds laid down by rolling, leaping, suspension, colloidal and otherwise. little charges. a cement not a matrix. crushed trichite. dinosaur bones, plant leaves, shark teeth, cetotoliths, insect legs. softly softly. the encroaching surf had available for sorting a wide variety of material. erratics inward. waves lay down in better order than you will find in a poorly sorted till. the finer things have still not been deposited when the water reaches its highest point. the rock flour floats. receding only the coarsest material is left. and then effects of hardness. the broken shells round out against the angular quartz. and the limestone. minimising fading. wonderfully preserved, some of the detail, unheard of in the more delicate parts. unfortunately the brain rots before fossilisation can occur but not the eyeball, if youre lucky. used to think it fell out of the sun. but just here, how is it that they sit high up here all this time. its the nature of the basin. the crust is subsiding. its cyclic. then will come burial and metamorphosis. and the organic material will be burned off and it will become coarse, like sugar. fresh quarries. the bricks and limbs of the future, and so on. radiate fingers of error.

maybe later we could go to cathedral rock said uncle jim, the cad. he may as well have said hatchery creek. dad had gone down to put his feet in the water and grandfather and mr shearsby were equally out of range having found an echinoderm or a nautiloid. its only rugose coral said mr shearsby but grandfather elbowed him out of the way to get a good angle with the pickaxe. he landed the point too hard and it cracked. mother sucking bitch of a whore. we all went down to the water.

there you are said mother stretching her arms when we got back. oh dad what have you done to your hand. nothing connie, sharp rocks. it was dusk so we drove slowly through town under the old gas lamps still there with the street names printed on the glass. clouds of white ants and moths. that was the year did i say the gass got in no, im muddling it up never mind.

haveitoldyouhowitgotitsname.yass.greg, thatisntatrue story, it has its etymology. as i was saying. be quiet and help me with this casserole. argie barking at something under the house. theres a dance at the lawn tennis club tonight, jim, you ought to go, catch up on some old faces. is there, well i dont know, perhaps i will. the pilot was on his way out of the house to check on the aeroplane. he took a slab of bread and kissed grandmother weil. fuel for the oven. you never stop do you. x and i played for a while in the wool shed because someone had told us to go out and amuse ourselves. sup aaa. aaa. aa. bkn. lks. i very nearly went down the chute. what are you two doing in here said grandfather from the lighted doorway. this is no place to muck around in. dad was with him. he came into the cool of the shed and took his hat off and wiped his forehead. this is an efficient looking set up you have here, gregory. its a double boarded shed, said grandfather, best kind for viewing your workers.

dad had run into mr triggs in town and got us all invited back to his shopfront on comur street to look at his coin collection. uncle jim said hed come too but then he met us there because he had a visit hed forgotten to return on green street or morton avenue or iceton place or castor or pollux street or plunkett street or glebe st. and we all had to be getting back to town the next day.

mr triggs met us on the street and took us up to his office. he was a polite man, erudite, paid his debts with interest collected incunabula read a lot kept up the price of sheep. his wife collected pieces of lace that had belonged to royalty. he had someone with him already, a professor from western australia, shann, lounging in a corner of the office browsing the land when we got there. no it was another mag. he stood up and shook hands all round. dad took off his hat. pleasure. talk up your work in the office. uncle jim came running in from the landing. saw gruber in the street. everyones out for the dance. hope i havent missed anything. no jim, just got here.

mr triggs opened one by one the shallow drawers of a wide mahogany commode where his coins rested on layers of felt. x and i stood up front. for me it was a matter of waiting until the displays got lower than my head. these bean shaped pieces of electrum are probably the origin of coined money. you see the rude impressions. and this one here with the irregular rectangular sinking and the striated surface on the other side. this struck during the reign of gyges, famous for the supposed magic ring rendered him invisible, probably the earliest coin known. whats it called when its stamped just on one side. a throat was cleared. this from philadelphia, associated with the seven churches of the revelation. a thunderbolt in olive wreath. a drachm from epheseus. bee with curved wings. in the field, on either side, a volute. the sphinx at chios was probably symbolical of the cultus of dionysus. from rhodes, head of helios three quarter face towards the right, hair loose. rosebud. bunch of grapes. radiate head of helios. all those who formed the new city of rhodes claimed descent from helios so the two symbols were naturally chosen as coin types. head of athena in archaic style. incuse square, within which, owl, right, head facing wings, closed. behind it an olive spray and a small decrescent moon. this piece was current for nearly two centuries. the waxing moon was probably connected to the panathenaic festival held every four years between july and august. a whole night vigil before feast day, carol singing, choral dance of young men and maidens. at that time the moon did not rise till after midnight. head of athena as before. owl. apparently the fish wives were indignant when large bronze coins replaced these diminutive pieces. they had the habit of keeping their change in their mouths. chryselephantine statue in the parthenon. head of zeus tykaeos with pan on the rocks, god of the woodlands, arcadian league. this is probably the goddess desponia, the mistress, daughter of posidon and demeter, pausanius dread. two heads united, in opposite directions, upwards and downwards. may be meant for the setting sun god. sea eagle on a dolphin. the coins of the archaean cities seem to point to a commercial alliance. like this one from metapontum with the ear of corn in high relief and the ear of corn incuse. head of persephone, veiled, wearing corn wreath, earring and necklace. ear of corn with leaf on which harvest mouse. professor shann shuffled his feet. bust of nero, radiate, wearing aegis. what did they call seleucus. these from the roman republic, from the silver mint and legal depository. dont touch that drawer chick, wait till we get down there. i put my hand on my belly and deny but it is no good. how do you like the look of that. just look. male head of gaul. vercingetorix. long pointed beard, hair flowing back, chain around neck. admired by republic for resistance. mask of medusa, palm branch. l. plautius. they were coming out at my chin now. because of the peoples resentment at the expulsion of the tibicines plautius had the latter put, intoxicated, in wagons one night and conveyed back to rome wearing scenic masks so they would not be recognised when they arrived in the early morning. i think i have that pretty well. how, as browne said, they left so many coins in the countries of their conquests, eccetera. this is preroman ring money. anglo saxon iron with ubiquitous stamp, passed into the marks of after ages. the rust makes it worthy again, ha, ha. the minne of sarai. this is an interesting one that reads backwards on the back, a long voided cross united in the centre.