Dislocation
In 2013, with two weeks’ notice, I packed my bags, books and two dogs and drove three hundred kilometres to my first teaching job in Murrayville, remote North-West Victoria. Murrayville Community College is a well-resourced Reception to Year 12 school which services the farming families of the Murray Mallee area. My two dogs, Duke and Oonah, found their ‘inner wolf’ in this hamlet at the edge of the Mallee Desert. Their daily adventures were both fraught and funny.
I stayed in teacher housing bordering a large area of Mallee scrub. Each icy morning from July to October the dogs burst out the door at 6 a.m. and dashed down the dusty tracks while I breakfasted and prepared for school.
Duke and Oonah
From day one, Oonah, my 15-month old Shar-Pei, Staffordshire Cross, turned feral: hunting sheep, flushing rabbits from their warrens at 4.00 in the morning and commando climbing fences to turn up at the school. I became accustomed to the principal slipping into my classroom and quietly advising me: ‘Excuse me, Ms Vouis, your dogs are here – again.’
Duke, my four-year-old English Staffordshire, learned many new and unwelcome tricks from his new mate who assumed the Alpha dog place in their two-mutt pack. He too attended the school, and these two became my best students. Between apologising to sheep farmers and returning the dogs to their yard, I was terrified that Oonah would end up with a farmer’s bullet in her black velvet pelt or that I would have to award them a graduation certificate for Primary School.
My first contract was an excruciatingly laborious gig. I was the third English and Literature teacher for the Year 12 class that year, and the students resented me and the churn they had to endure. I was lonely, working 78 hours a week but my dogs made it bearable.
Enchantment
The isolating experience of living in a remote, rural location, on the edge of scrub with a dry, desolate beauty, built my resilience and forged a magical bond between my canine pack and me. Both my dogs are ‘recycled’, having come from rescue organisations. I am a Greek migrant who grew up in Whyalla to a back-chorus of ‘wog, wog’. All three of us, othered and marginalised, made a solid clan. Dogs ‘belong’ you and supply family where there is none; great mercy for me at this time and now too.
At night during harvest time when marking and reports were done, Duke, Oonah and I walked and walked along the red-dirt country roads. It was our midnight meditation; a small space between toil, sleep and morning.
December 23rd 2013 Port Noarlunga, upon return from Murrayville
Fields of ripe wheat spread out before us under the full moon. The silence and the silver light, the farmers’ house lights. Bush sounds and shadows are a permanent print in my memory.
May 2020 Sauerbier House steps, Port Noarlunga
Seven years on
Three weeks ago, after an eight-month chaotic and fruitless fight against a malignant Mast Cell Tumour, Oonah, only eight years old, was euthanised at home to the sound of ‘When They Ring the Golden Bells,’ played by my partner Steve Evans and accompanied by my very shaky, teary voice.
That morning, I drove her to Port Noarlunga and carried her anaemic, rag doll body onto the beach for her last scent of salt and look at the beautiful marine sanctuary she loved and had run on and splashed in for her eight short years.
Oonah’s journey with cancer was mine too, which meant life and death treatment decisions that I had to make for her, all under terrible time pressure. Our labyrinth of interventions involved natural therapies, vets, oncologists, and also chemotherapy with the drug Palladia. This last choice ultimately ended her life.
Vale Oonah
Everyone who has experienced the death of a beloved animal knows the sorrow of losing that perfect bond — human and dog is an ideal friendship, except for a mismatched life span, which is a covenant with mourning. But I am grateful. Unconditional love remains like a thickness in the blood.
I am profoundly thankful for Oonah’s beauty, protection, intensity, companionship and the confidence she gave me to see out a gruelling teaching contract.
I am also glad that I gave her and Duke a chance to live in a rural, remote place where they could experience their wildness and the hunt that is inbuilt in their ancient wolf DNA. Dogs, the human-made copies of wolves are so often constrained in dull suburban lives where they can’t live out their wolf ancestry.
For us, Duke, Oonah and I, the Murrayville contract bonded us; our pack memories are as lasting as a tattoo.
In Happier Times
I offer this haibun in homage to Oonah’s black, wolf-like loyalty.
Author Bio
Maria won the 2018 Friendly Street New Poets 19 manuscript prize. She sings, speaks and writes poetry, specialising in form, spoken word and poetic craft which she teaches to adults and younger students.
A Greek migrant, Maria inhabits the schism of a two-tongue world, a space that fuels many of her poems. Work with minorities, particularly children in care, the voicelessness of animals, Indigenous and refugee issues and the plight of those on society’s fringe drives Maria.
As a finalist in the Goolwa 2017 Poetry Slam for her poem, Mr Lizard Lips and here is Maria, performing Little Poems About Kisses on YouTube.
Contact Maria here: loveoflearninginhouse@gmail.com
Dr Steve, thanks. It has been a signicant creative exchange over the time I have known you as tutor/ supervisor in the Creative Writing Dept at Flinders, to a personal and professional connection. Your gift as a tutor is an ability to facilutate a poet’s craft whilst protecting their precious voice. A bond shared with an animal is sometimes judged as inferior to human connection: this is speciesism. I hope Dogs in Moonlut Wheat speaks to the indivudual and the universal experience of love shared with our animal companions annd honours them.as servants of the heart.
This is very moving. As someone who has had both cats and dogs and pets, I know how they become knitted into the fabric of one’s life.
Both your narrative and your poetry, especially ‘Dogs in Moonlit Wheat’,, are a testament to that. Beautifully written, and evocative.
Hi Maria, thanks for reply. I did a little creative writing at flinders but mainly my writing is just from the soul, hence nature, our own and the nature/ nurture we are surrounded by and must ultimately surrender to as well. I am primarily a poet and have self published Authenticity which can be found at noarlunga library ( with a few typos) I started looking for volunteer work as a creative writing facilitator and by a miracle, which you have noticed! I got a job where I peer support writers from No Strings Attached Theatre of Disability. Yes, I too listen to ABC, and especially Philosophers Zone with David Rutledge. Re: constructing a workshop on Nature Writing if your ever interested I know a great venue lol. I know it is difficult at this time to attract much interest at all when people struggle so, but nothing is completely lost, right, not even 2020. Bless,Becky
Hello Becky,
Yes I do remember you being one of the few of the students who attended the MIFSA course regularly. I am happy to hear you have scored a paid job in writing. What a rare animal that is: a paid job in any creative field. Or currently, a paid job anywhere thanks to Corona. It appears also that Corona is nature’s nemesis as according to many articles, includingABC Radion RN Background Briefing, that the disease is zoontic and due to obscenely cruel praitces in wild-life trafficking and wet markets in China and surrounding countries. I am very curious about your nature writing.
Did you do any study on this?
All the best and may you be well.
Hi Maria. I don’t know if you remember me from about a decade ago when you tutored at Mifsa in creative writing. You have inspired me over the years, and I’ve seen you down south a few times. Anyway, just remembered you the other day because I now have a paid job as Writer in Residence for a theatre company and run workshops in creative writing. How did this happen? Would love some tips. Have already done Writing for the Senses and about to do the Hero’s journey…nature writing and editing our anthology which will be published. Best wishes andthankyou for all the good you have done.
Hello Tess,
it is so wonderful that you adopted a large dog from a shelter.
The smaller ones always go first and the big hulks lose out.
Good on you and the investment is worth it – they give back so much.
Thank you for your comments Vivien. I am working on a book called ‘Dogolalia’ or ‘Fang Lingo’ about dogs, rescued and otherwise.
It will probably be a chap book, but it is getting a bit fat for that: as am I.
A sad but very loving story.
It touches on the spiritual connection between mammals
So true to the spirit of Oonah
And little Dukey trying desperately to keep up with the hunt
Charlie has come into our lives after she spent eight months in a kennel, The size of a small pony, American Staffie plus boxer,, striped like a Tasmanian Tiger, no one wanted her. We had lost Daisy after fourteen years, our long haired German Shepherd and suddenly, Charlie was there, shivering when touched, eyes darting , so unloved…..could you have her for the weekend before she is put down ? ,a friend asked. A week passed, then a month, then six months and I write this with Charlie nudging my ankle, waiting for a gentle stroke, soon a walk, then dinner…Charlie is now a trusting and loved part of our family . I can’t imagine our lives without her.
Although so sorrowful the love and happiness shows through. As a tribute to Oonah her story should be told in a book. I enjoy reading the stories of dogs from rescue groups. Have just finished one ‘ Gabby
the dog who had to learn to bark’ by Barby Keel, who runs an animal sanctuary. She has four other books on dogs.
Jesus is the healer of broken hearts.
Far out Maria!
Savannah’s soul, your words, too much beauty xx
Hi Inez,
thank you for your kind words. We are soul sisters where animals are concerned. I felt like I left Dora, my Staffordshire out of my story, so I am posting ithere. Again, she died early, 7 and 1/2 years. I feel cheated by losing both Oonah and Dora so early. However, I am grateful for their service and companionship and my little Duke is 11 and God willing will go on for many more healthy, happy years.
Savannah
Snout down, ahead her tail a hoisted flag,
her arse’s eye, pink puckered sedition.
Miles behind us and then the rusty crag,
day in, day out, dog’s bum meditation,
friendship of four paws by two feet walking,
nose to knee solace as each day ended
for politic fools and lovers stalking
my peace, her sane eye and swift paw mended.
Love remains like a thickness in the blood,
although she’s dust in a box by my bed,
alone she drowned in a methadone flood,
but I clocked the second her spirit fled.
Framed, her cabochon eyes blaze olivine,
a last savannah we still walk within.
Hi Carolyn,
thanks for your comment. I have had a bit of bad luck with my girl dogs. Dora my Staffordshire died in 2011 at 7 1/2 years old and Oonah was only 8. Duke, the little red dog is keeping on at 11 years old. They are wonderful servants dogs and they make us a pack. After food, water, and shelter, the need to belong is critical in terms of our needs, according to Maslow. I wrote a sonnet or two for Dora, which was published in New Poets 19. I posted it below
Savannah
Snout down, ahead her tail a hoisted flag,
her arse’s eye, pink puckered sedition.
Miles behind us and then the rusty crag,
day in, day out, dog’s bum meditation,
friendship of four paws by two feet walking,
nose to knee solace as each day ended
for politic fools and lovers stalking
my peace, her sane eye and swift paw mended.
Love remains like a thickness in the blood,
although she’s dust in a box by my bed,
alone she drowned in a methadone flood,
but I clocked the second her spirit fled.
Framed, her cabochon eyes blaze olivine,
a last savannah we still walk within.
Thanks for commenting Inez. I’ll pass it on to Maria.
Oh Maria that bond that unconditional love is palpable. And a beautiful story about the bonds we form with pets, they are our angels. Love your work Maria! Inez x
I’ll pass this on Carolyn. Thanks for reading. I’ve advised Maria to keep an eye out herself for comments coming in. Lindy
Oh this is so awesome! Dogs, Japanese poetic haibun, country scenes, loss of a canine friend, the words spoke to me, and took me along the path with them. I adored this piece, Maria! Carolyn