Garry Kilworth took John Brosnan's ashes home, to '... a vineyard outside the community of Sulky, between the large towns of Ballarat and Castlemaine in Victoria, Australia. There we scattered the remainder of John's ashes on the vines, with the words, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, wine to the vine." We chose the vineyard of "Dulcinea" wines because of the literary connection -- Dulcinea being "the sweet and
beautiful one" in Don Quixote as I'm sure you all know. It was a sunny day, not too hot (though the countryside here is in the 11th year of a drought) with a wonderful view from the vineyard which swept down to open fields, over what we would call a dew pond (here they call it a dam) to hazy blue mountains beyond. There was a stiff breeze which caught the ashes and spread them down one of the lanes of vines. I had also chosen a verse from an Australian poem called "The Old Australian Ways" by Banjo Patterson, who wrote "Waltzing Matilda". We drove to the bottom of the vineyard where I read it out loud, feeling the owners might wonder what the heck was going on. So throw the weary pen aside / And let the papers rest, / For [you] must saddle up and ride / Towards the blue hill's breast; / And [you] must travel far and fast / Across their rugged maze, /To
find the Spring of Youth at last, / And call back from the buried past / The old Australian ways.' [via Robert Holdstock]
From Ansible 236, March 2007
You might remember that I wrote about the death of John Brosnan here in 2005.
