A Charles Sturt University (CSU) academic has written a poem to mark the unveiling of a significant piece of public art in Wagga Wagga.

Dragonfly by adjunct Senior Lecturer in English at CSU, Mr David Gilbey was inspired by the 15-metre long public art installation, Flight at the Wagga Wagga Regional Airport.

A project of Wagga Wagga City Council, Flight was created by artists Susan Milne and Greg Stonehouse with members of the Booranga Writers's Centre at CSU developing the wording on the artwork, 'Horizons made wide in the country'.

Mr Gilbey said, "I was moved by this sculpture so I wanted to celebrate the multiple meaning-making of public art in my poem. Collaboration between writers and artists, Charles Sturt University and the city create fruitful opportunities which enhance our lives in regional Australia. I wanted to inscribe the local into a national frame." 

Dragonfly

This morning is a poem,
'Autumn, Wagga Wagga': season of mist and mellow fruitfulness?...
a living sonnet, a bold ballad, an ode full of wry humour –
a free-verse praise song, a Riverina anthem.
It's a witty Shakespearean comedy
bringing councillors, artists, community members out from their daily, complex lives
to this airport, these wings, for this public launching.

Its lines are shaped by the flooding Murrumbidgee,
the red and smoky waves of bushfire,
deadlines, budgets, meetings…
and politics, Green, Red and  Blue;
consciousness of the environment, wanting justice and equity
within State and Federal constraints.

We are the poem's phrases: citizens, writers, designers, administrators –
we enact its syllables against a backdrop
of Wagga's public and commercial history.
It has its gods and icons.
They dance across the airport empyrean to the CBD:
pirouetting through Ashmont, Turvey Park, Gumly Gumly;
holding hands with Kapooka, the University, Equex...

Its core is this shining work,
blue, silver, solid, fluid,
part river, part bird, gliding across the  land
about to take off to the skies.

Our lives frame and echo
this generous, optimistic celebration.
We are the makers,
we expand the horizons,
we are this country.

David Gilbey
27^th April, 2015