2. PermaCultural Hunter
- circa 1996

In Memory of my great-great-great grandfather, Edward Hunter -Born: 1817 Longbenton, Northumberland, England Departed 1852 on 'The Emigrant' from Sunderland to Melbourne, Died: 1895 Wandin Yallock, Victoria, Australia.


In Yarra Valley Lilydale,
outmoded in late decades,
from being

the horticultural
people's country town,
Limil shire village,
Melbourne lime supply depot;

to being sub-urban
a vegetating rank-growth
of suppurated suburbs!

Edward Hunter,
My horticultural forbear;

-like a plant
long-loaded after bearing

lies in wait
in his century-outlasted grave;

for,
though now unsung,
his Lillydale can still be read
in the cemetery,

speaking good
as he once spoke
in Council

counsel engraved
deep in his tombstone:

" There is no death!
What seems so is transition;
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life Elysian
whose portal we call death. "


7 Dec 1996 © Wayne David Knoll

First Published in ‘Studio: a Journal of Christians Writing Albury NSW 1997