Cedar Whelan
Cedar Whelan lives and writes poetry and prose in Muloobinba (Newcastle, Australia) about mental health experience, memoir, nomadic wandering, and diversity (disability, queer, eco, and cultural). read more…
Ceasefire
walking a fine line
trying not to trip
stumbling takes us
well below
our lapping at
the tip of the iceberg
flotsam tossed and turned
keel of mighty ancient glacial mass
revealed
draws us down
it’s flounder
or sink
now
but wait
we can learn to tread water
to dive
to climb
rest on the pinnacle
cease the meltdown
find equilibrium
solidarity
acknowledge the unseen
submerged
without turbulence
Wanderer
I remember remote rambling
In Larrakia Gulumoerrgin country
near Belyuen,
west of Darwin harbour
the Gurrulwa Guligi season
of parched wetlands and big wind
I move from mangrove forest
through sand palms, pandanus, turkey bush
I come to a magnetic termite city
many mounds all facing north
I am mesmerized
by the constant bustling
around these citadels
of the Walatha Walatha
the little people
going about their business.
guardians of this land
I wipe sweat from my armpits
on trees and grasses
introduce myself to this country
avert my eyes
alert my ears
do they welcome me
because I sense them
or are they warning me
I recall Ma Boyd
telling my child
always to obey them
all goes still
clearly I hear
Go. Now.
as I rush to my car
I hear the dogs
of the pig hunters
was it deep attunement
to the place
and its carers
or psychosis
as the cops said
when they busted me speeding away
Published in anthologies and journals including by Sappho Poetry, Spineless Wonders, Hunter Writers’ Centre, Bramble, Burrow, PEN (UK), and others, she has also done residencies and exhibited at Lighthouse Arts Whibayganba, and performed in the UK and at writers’ festivals in Australia. Short-listed twice in the Joanne Burns Microlit Award and currently long-listed for the Heroines Women’s Writing Prize, she has won prizes from Red Room Poetry and Hunter Writers’ Centre. She is passionate about dialogue, debunking stigma, inclusion, advocacy, social justice, and the visibility of mental health writers on the broader literary landscape.
Cedar founded and facilitated CDAH Writers (Community Disability Alliance Hunter) for regional writers with disability.