The Dreaming Tree by Jo Oliver

For the Oakley poets

First published in Australia 2016

by New Frontier Publishing Pty Ltd ABN 67 126 171 757

Suite 3, Level 2, 18 Aquatic Drive, Frenchs Forest NSW 2086, Australia www.newfrontier.com.au

Text and illustrations copyright © 2016 Jo Oliver

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of

private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted by the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publishers.

All rights reserved.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Creator: Oliver, Jo, author, illustrator.

Title: The dreaming tree / Jo Oliver.

ISBN: 9781925059489 (hardback)

Target Audience: For primary school age.

Subjects: Children’s prose poems.

Picture books for children.

Australia--Juvenile fiction.

Dewey Number: A823.4 Printed in China

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The illustrations for The Dreaming Tree were created while Jo Oliver was Children’s Book Week Artist in Residence with Bundanon Trust and during a residency at Pinerolo funded by the Copyright Agency.

The Dreaming Tree Oak trees can live for hundreds of years.

Ours must be very old.

Nana remembers it when she was young.

Hearts of oak from little acorns grow.

I climb into your branches and sit.

I can see out but no-one can see me.

Sometimes I bring a book and read, but mostly I sit and look and dream in the green.

Dawn Violet clouds lie along the horizon, like a range of unclimbed peaks from a far-off land; now touched with pink.

A sliver of moon floats silent in the soft blue sky and one last star shines brave from the night.

Trees silhouetted hold their breath, when the magpie, heralding this daily miracle, sings.

And then the glow begins and golden orb, the rising sun, our star, with piercing light, life to the Earth brings.

Honesty Honesty is fragile, paper-thin, shimmering white when the light shines through.

You have to hold it carefully, but if you do, it lasts and lasts.

This land What a beautiful land.

What a beautiful place.

Red-sand deserts, blue-green ranges, sapphire seas.

Some people have lived here for thousands of years.

Some for barely a minute.

Our place.

La Australia del EspĂ­ritu Santo.

The Great South Land.