Warmth

Sitting here in Northern Rivers, opening my fan,
I read that it’s even hotter in Perth where my old aunt
remembers little now, her days drifting by at a cruise.

She is fed and taken care of, as she was on those cruise
ships, where at each port she collected a fancy fan –
the hand-held kind. She had human fans too, my aunt

and still has. She is simply, always, my favourite aunt
who rescued me from a cold household, taught me to cruise
through life with kindness and laughter. I spread out my fan,

my treasured fan, which my aunt once found on a cruise.


18/1/10

Unchanging Afternoons

The somnolent unchanging afternoons
of summer schooldays in Australia
play in my mind like lazy, half-lost tunes.
On somnolent unchanging afternoons
of peppercorns and small white daytime moons,
I dreamed of drama, storm, and high regalia –
and now of those unchanging afternoons
in somnolent long summers of Australia.

10/1/10

Steamy Nights

Steamy nights
on this tree-thick hill
my grey cat
sits silent
on the top step, keeping guard
while we toss in heat.


9/1/10

Tanka on Tuesday: December 2009

3/12/09

at this time of year
before long lazy summer
inexplicably
time speeds up to a gallop
leaving us frantic, breathless


5/12/09   

Inspired by a Bette Norcross Wappner woodcut
(which — sorry! — you can only see if you're a LiveJournal member)

the vast landscape
goes to sleep in the cold
hunkering down
beside a sentinel tree
and a lone bonfire


8/12/09

all night
the smell of smoke
seeps indoors
from forest fires
two hillsides away


9/12/09

the smoke dies
the fire is contained
rain falls
I breathe and remember
my friend lately dead


15/12/09

rain
on a warm morning
breakfast
surrounded by sound
and that fresh smell


17/12/09

rain slowly dripping
from the underside of leaves
after the downpour
I remember my childhood
and the smell of the wet green   


22/12/09

the new home is high
to catch the summer breezes
Phil’s painting it now
in six more days we move in
there’s a huge rosemary bush


**********************************

Midsummer Sabbat
the old coven reconvenes
from all directions

the years since we last gathered
have seen us live our magick


 30/12/10

raining in Condong
don't take the steep hilly road
but up the highway
turning in at Chinderah
high out of flood range but flat

moving in the wet
Pottsville to Murwillumbah
and back many times
the new garage filling up
boxes and boxes and box...

Book by Cover

for Collin

A lone tree in a field.
He likes that image –
used it once, briefly,
for an online profile
and here, more permanently,
on the cover of his first book.

The field is always
flat and unrelieved,
sparse grass.
The tree is always
the focal point:
sturdy, spreading

I like the strong trunk,
the generous width
of branches opening
to cup the air
and reaching, stretching:
bold, with delicate tendrils.

But wait. Is it light
that touches every surface –
trunk, branches, twigs?
Or a coating of lichen?
I look hard and see
no leaves. Is it snow?

“Better to Travel”
the title says.
I have seen snow
but not often,
and only on
high mountains.

I travel anyway
through the poems
and know their author
can weather storm,
ice, rain, all kinds of
dying, and stand.


18/12/09


Inspired by Collin Kelley's Better to Travel