Letting Go of Difference

She’s been training us
now for years
to let go of the notion
that cats and people
have their own separate places.

We are tribe, she says,
we are herd.
Settles herself, insistent,
at bed or table,
defining them as shared spaces.

And as the years pass
we let go
more and more of difference,
of entitlement,
that ‘superior human’ stance.

Glad that this smart cat
and loving
has been willing to teach us
about connection,
we move with her now in that dance.


April PAD Challenge 30
Prompt: Letting go.
(The cat is Freya.)

And Suddenly Dreams Come True

Details in the real world
the star forecast says,
may prevent us, today,
from having lovely fantasies.

True. Today I’m having
lovely realities.
Suddenly Patsy phones.
(My friend who looks out for me.)

‘Do you still need
a full-length mirror?’
Suddenly her neighbour
is giving one away.

It’s the one I’ve dreamed:
a high cheval,
frame and stand of timber
polished golden.

‘Over there in that corner
of the bedroom,’ says Andrew.
Yes, I’d always fantasised
exactly that spot. It looks good.


April PAD Challenge 29
Prompt: And suddenly ...

The End of the Line

This is where we have come to rest,
at the end of a leafy cul-de-sac
in sight of the ranges that mark the border
between one state and the next.

This is where we expect to enjoy
the rest of our lives in these bodies:
at the top of a small hill, high enough
to feel removed yet accessible still.

You could say we have come
to the end of the line, or close.
I see it rather as a crossing-place
to stay in and savour before we go on.


April PAD Challenge 28
Prompt: The end of the line

The Boy Across the Road

The boy across the road
is singing all by himself
as if he thinks no-one can hear,
or doesn’t care.

His voice is very sweet.
The whole street listens,
quiet inside our houses
not to interrupt.

He is tidying up the yard
where his little sisters play,
looking out over the valley
to the Border Ranges.

Yesterday he brought me
one small sister, who wanted
to sell me chocolate: two dollars
or three for five.

She is saving to buy
a Play Station. He bent
with his arm around her,
smiling up at me.

Muggings in Knox Park,
addicts round Sunnyside,
but a boy like Nathan
creates hope.


April PAD Challenge 27
Prompt: a hopeful poem.

More Than Five Times?

Let me count.
I must have started
at the beginning of March,
that first Tuesday.

This is the final week of April.
There were five Tuesdays
in March alone.
And four more this month.

So yes, it’s definitely
more than five.
How many more?
I missed at least one.

OK, I’ll take a look.
Hmmm, hard to remember;
I didn’t write it in.
Could have missed two.

That would still
be more than five.
Let’s say definitely seven,
seven at least. So far.

But see, I don’t think
I’ll continue.
I’ve almost
made up my mind.

More than five, yes
but not much more.
Oh, it’s been
quite interesting. But


April PAD Challenge 26
Prompt: More than 5 times

Wild Goose's Sister

(Inspired by Frankie Laine’s ‘The Cry of the Wild Goose’)

Not a girly girl,
though I seemed to be.
I was quiet, timid, dreamy:
‘nose in a book’
‘scared of her shadow’
‘head in the clouds’.

Well they got that last one right.
I wanted to fly with Frankie
like the Wild Goose,
to breast the wind and ride the sky,
sailing on open wings
over the horizon, far and free.

In dreams I was D’Artagnan,
I was Robin Hood.
Never Maid Marian.
It was always
the dashing hero I wanted
not to win but be.

I grew into a woman, wanting
and getting what women dream:
husband, home, children,
all that — a woman
who is always finding
feathers in her path.


April PAD Challenge 25
Prompt: Write a poem inspired by a song. 
Include the song and artist (if known).

Submitted April 2013 for Poets United's Poetry Pantry #144

Evening in the Eyrie

As evening falls on our hill
nest becomes eyrie.
We are just above
the floating mist.

We watch the street
settle down and get quiet,
the children called inside
and the cars arriving home.

Lights in the houses
go on and then off.
The streets lights
come on and remain.

The quiet cul-de-sac
goes to bed early.
Only cats and writers
are wakeful late.


#AprPAD 24 
Prompt: An evening poem.

Exhaustion

He sleeps in his chair all day.
We walk around him quietly,
smiling to see how deeply
he relaxes after his long night.

We understand that in his mind
he is not elderly, nothing has changed —
certainly not his adventurous spirit.

He doesn’t see why his body
can’t do what it’s always done.
He loves to run, to climb,
to push his limits, unthinking.

The torn ligament, healed now,
is almost forgotten. Just a hint
in the remaining, very slight limp.

Even now he’s careless of safety.
Came in the other night
without his collar: lost.
Better, of course, than strangling.

He’s still a handsome old bloke —
the same shining black hair
that I’ve loved since his youth.

And his passion for me is still fresh.
If I were to touch him now as he sleeps,
he would not snap at me; he would gaze up
purring loudly, his adoration never exhausted.


April PAD Challenge 23

Prompt: an exhausted poem

Arctic Volcano

When ice erupts in fire
and ash is filled with shards of glass
is that accident
or a clear message?
An Act of God,
we describe it. Do we
mean and believe what we say?

How many are listening?
How many are trembling?
Is Mother Gaia
voicing a protest?

Or is this cause and effect
too late for redress?

Do you remember the crop circles?
The real ones, not the fakes.
Many asked, what are they
trying to tell us?

If you looked you could see
mandala shapes: balance,
proportion, and harmony,
one side perfectly matching the other.
Also it wasn’t hard to perceive
gentleness, peace and beauty.
No guesswork required.

But we are hard of hearing,
though the Universe speaks loud.


April PAD Challenge 22
Prompt: an earth poem (for Earth Day)

According to the Rules

According to the rules
for Whirling Dervishes,
we are told, they must not
whirl for visitors, not
the real thing, merely
a tame half-performance.
The real thing is wild,
dangerous. Even to see
that, you would not
recover from it, ever.

As every child knows
in the scary delight
of spinning to get dizzy.
Round and round and round,
faster and faster, faster!
Remember losing yourself
and coming out the other side?
Remember the brain-spin?
Remember the thrill
and the weirdness? Oh yes!

According to the rules
we do not speak the secret
that every body knows.
Altered consciousness
is very quick and simple.
What’s it most like? Tell me!
Yes, you know. As every
grown-up knows. Rapture
we might call it. Mystic, erotic,
or just a game: ecstatic.


April PAD Challenge 21
Prompt: According to ...

Not Looking Back

We drove out of Melbourne
without a backward look,
the car stuffed full of luggage
and a removal van en route.
The further north we got
the more we felt the energy lighten.

Incomprehensible, really.
He’d lived there since his birth
(except one year in England);
I’d been there most of my adult life.
And we’d loved the place — but
suddenly that was all over.

Two years later I was back
for a conference, briefly.
The friend who met me said,
‘So you don’t miss Melbourne, then?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘How did you know?’
‘You’re not looking out the window.’

On occasional family visits since
we’ve noticed that the new buildings
are increasingly ugly, and the din
of the city centre is like relentless gunfire.
(The locals, we think, tune out.)
No, we don’t miss Melbourne.


April PAD Challenge 20
Prompt (2): Not looking back

Looking Back, Far and Near

When I rode with Genghis Khan
the horses were short and tough.
My horse was my friend.
Now I am a woman, an old woman,
and I have never sat a horse.

When I was little I rode on the hoof
of Horace, the draught-horse
in my grandfather’s orchard,
standing on it and clasping his leg.
He was my only horse friend this time.

When I rode with my brothers
as a Mongol warrior, I wore
a helmet with leather earflaps
and a cap of fur over that.
Now I hate wearing hats.

When I was a little girl, my mother
put me in cotton sunbonnets
with shady brims and big neck flaps
because I was fair and might burn.
She sewed them herself.

When I galloped across the Steppes
with axe and sword and bow
I was not afraid. I knew battle
and my horse helped me. My brothers
were all around me. It was good.

In my life here and now,
I was always a timid child
and couldn’t handle my body
to turn a somersault or ride a bike.
I hated raised voices and confrontation.

Now is better, I believe. I can fight
if I have to. And I can think well
to avoid it. I wear what I choose.
I like driving my red car.
I make poems. I pet my cats.

Yet, lover of hills and trees, sometimes
I imagine sweeping across the plain
on the back of my sturdy horse,
or remember not being afraid
of a huge, gentle Clydesdale
touching who I was.


April PAD Challenge 20
Prompt (1) Looking Back.

Helen Marjorie Holmes

How soft the roses bloom,
climbing the trellised gateway
under which you pose
in your pale blue dress.
A water colourist
retouched the print —
the only way in those days —
delicately, in pastels.

Your face and bosom still
have a girlish roundness.
Your smile is shy. I wonder
if my father took the photo
and it’s him you’re smiling at.
I have an idea it was taken
at The Orchard House in Spreyton
soon after you were engaged.

I seem to remember that trellis.
I think my Nana grew roses
in the gardens of your home,
my Nana your mother, who died
when you and I were both
too young to lose her.
Later my gardener Dad
grew standard roses, all colours,
in the home where I grew up.

But back then in the picture, you
were just a young girl
who knew nothing
of the future that would come —
children, war, divorce....
Now there are very few left
who remember you at all, Mum,
and none but me, I think, to recall
even the picture, let alone the girl.


April PAD Challenge 19
Prompt: A poem about someone, their name as title.
(I chose her maiden name, the one she had at the time of the photo.)

To Make Music

To make music: what a fine thing
that would be. I love music; always
dreamed of singing. It was not my gift.

To dance: how beautiful it must be
to soar with grace, to pirouette.
Alas, that’s an art I never mastered.

So I turn to the only way I have
to be at one with myself in joy;
and to sing and dance: to poetry —

My voice, my grace, my art, my beauty.


April PAD Challenge 18
Prompt: To (blank); fill in the blank and make that the title.

The Fractal Universe

I love words, not numbers, yet
when I saw Mandelbrot Sets
I fell in love as never before
with those unfurling swirls of colour
opening out or devolving down
in intricate patterns, over and over.

It was a TV special, and Sir Arthur Clarke,
scientist and wordsmith both,
explained it so that I could understand.

These are the shapes of the Universe,
this is its basic structure. Go as far
as you like, further than you humanly can,
in any direction, and always the pattern
reproduces itself, in infinite beauty. This
is the law of nature; this is The Law.

At the end he divulged the most thrilling
point of all. Within this Universal order,
we can even find randomness, built-in.

By the science of mathematics it is proven,
the perfect paradox: yes there is order
predetermined — infinite, eternal, assured.
And there is chaos and spontaneity,
no contradiction. Central to fate, at the core
of determinism, there blossoms freedom.


April PAD Challenge 17
Prompt: a science poem.

Anxiety

She leads an adventurous life
avoiding the dire possibilities
that are out there waiting —
much more exciting than
for those of us who miss out
on the thrills of fear and escape
which she navigates daily.

Life is writ larger for her.
When her cat stays out all night,
she opens the door in the morning
thinking to find, on the ground outside,
his dead body. Such profound relief
when he bounces inside for breakfast
and her ecstatic greeting.

When her man is late home
by a few minutes, in no time at all
she is planning the funeral —
what to wear, whom to invite —
then tries to disguise her rapture
when he turns up after all. Nowadays
it seems to irritate him. (Why?)

Any ache, sniffle or bump
causes cries of alarm, and another
appointment with a doctor. Always
a new doctor, as each one fails
to treat her physical symptoms
with due seriousness. They only
want to examine her emotions.

She doesn’t know how she has managed
to cheat death for so long. All her life
he has stalked her, laying traps. So far
she has evaded every ambush, but
she knows that one day he’ll trip her up.
As indeed he shall, one day. Meanwhile
she is absorbed in the drama of her life.


April PAD Challenge 16
Prompt: a death poem

Approaching the Deadline

I think, you see, that we are,
now, at the End of Days —
whatever that will mean.

All is happening
according to prediction.
The signs are in the sky

and on the earth as well.
Go back and read again
not Revelations but Ramtha.

Always we have been told
we ourselves can create
our collective fate.

At this point I don’t know
which way the scales will tip,
the weights too vast to estimate.

But I know on which side
I am adding my weight.
And that is purpose enough.


April PAD Challenge 15
Prompt: A deadline poem.

I Grew Up on a Small Island

I grew up on a small island.
It shapes you. I always knew
in my bones and my breath
boundaries and containment
and also a yearning
to find the large world
that lies over the horizon.

Edges. I grew up
with a deep, unquestioned
awareness of edges,
borders, those regions
of change and transition —
useful for stepping through
portals and crossing dimensions.

When I moved to the big island,
the ‘island continent’
that my tiny home hangs off,
horizons expanded in all directions.
And still you come eventually
to an edge. A stepping-off point
with a wide world beyond.

Between self and other
this and the larger mass
is vast sky, boundless ocean.
Standing on the edge engenders
a longing to fly. Take that deep breath!
How far we can stretch, yet always
return safe home, safely held.


April PAD Challenge 14
Prompt: (blank) island; fill in the blank and make it the title of your poem.

Two Loves

Oh Ocean, I’ve left you.
How could this be? I was torn
from you in the end by my equal
love for the great mountain
to which I have returned
after years away with you.

But I miss you, Ocean, now
as I missed the mountain then.

When I visit your neighbourhood
that used to be mine, I can’t wait
to catch that line of blue
as I crest the hill and approach.

In those days, when I came back
to the mountain I know as home,
I used to hold my breath
until it came in view, then sigh
in rapture to see my beloved —
that now I rejoice in, night and morning.

But you, you, oh Ocean, you
blue delight of my heart, wild sparkler
and frother, your moods and colours
even more changeable and rich
than cloud shifts over the mountain, you
are far away out of sight and can’t be heard.

Only in memory your sleepless roar
pounds the message of how close you are....
How close you were. Too seldom
I come within coo-ee, too seldom see,
hear, let alone taste and smell
you, tangible you, that I ache for.


April PAD Challenge 13
Prompt: A love poem

Machu Picchu

I watch the city of stone spread out again
across the peak of the mountain,
under the high shield of the other mountain
the dark one, younger and taller: my love.

I am sitting above the ruins, on the terraced hill.
We have walked through a place of fire.
Only last month this green hill burned,
and we can still see traces. And the sun
today has been fiery too; many tourist faces
have turned pink already. But I am at peace here.

There is a small hut close by. A decade later
my friend Helen will go and sit in its emptiness
and look out over the same view. She will adopt it
emotionally as ‘Helen’s house’. I in my time
do not enter the hut that will be her house,
but I like both its isolation and its implied shelter.

I almost dance down the steep rocks, fear of height
switched miraculously off, to wander through
solid buildings roofless to the sky. I hardly believe
I am here, touching. The altar to the sun is roped off.
No sacrifices today; the site is under repair. But we observe
the bowls and trenches that must have been for blood.

On a grassy space by a huge rock, under a frail tree,
we rest and contemplate. Later in meditation
I shall descend through hidden tunnels
over and over again, to meet my kin.


April PAD Challenge 12
Prompt: A city.


Also submitted 10 Dec. 2011 to Poets United's Thursday Think Tank #77 — The City