How serious he looks,
the young musician,
dressed up in suit and hat
to play his ‘gypsy cello’,
his long white fingers
deft on the strings.
His soft boy mouth
is briefly tremulous
as if restraining weeping,
or singing silently.
His eyes are shaded
by the brim of his hat.
The sombre music of dusk
flows from him with authority
as it must. Composer, interpreter,
maker of the instrument:
he and his music are one.
Night and stillness arrive
with the final chords.
(See and hear)
10 February 2010
2 February 2010
Another hot night: January Tanka 2010
tap tap tap tap tap
silence in the library
is not as it was
I liked the old reading room
with the great dome, in Melbourne
still I must be glad
for the computer access
which serves the whole world
and me, creating tanka
tap tap tap tap tap tap tap
5/1/10
warm night
poetry and chocolate
before bed
I don’t shower
liking my skin smell
12/12/10
the weather cools
and there's a scent of rain
the injured cat
starts eyeing the outdoors
still forbidden to him
19/1/10
another hot night
after the one-blanket chill
of early morning
bare feet and sarong all day
and the fan still blowing hard
21/1/10
the DVD works
we’ve sorted which desk is whose
where to feed the cats
and how we can beat the heat —
home begins to shape itself
26/1/10
silence in the library
is not as it was
I liked the old reading room
with the great dome, in Melbourne
still I must be glad
for the computer access
which serves the whole world
and me, creating tanka
tap tap tap tap tap tap tap
5/1/10
warm night
poetry and chocolate
before bed
I don’t shower
liking my skin smell
12/12/10
the weather cools
and there's a scent of rain
the injured cat
starts eyeing the outdoors
still forbidden to him
19/1/10
another hot night
after the one-blanket chill
of early morning
bare feet and sarong all day
and the fan still blowing hard
21/1/10
the DVD works
we’ve sorted which desk is whose
where to feed the cats
and how we can beat the heat —
home begins to shape itself
26/1/10
Outside the pane: haiku for January 2010
sunflowers
and a new neighbour
waving
5/1/10
the wind chimes are up
boxes out of the living room
bit by bit new home
7/1/10
mountains
from every window
thick with trees
******
outside the pane
a pair of lizards
stopped for gazing
11/1/10
in the hottest hours
even the ants
are still
14/1/10
clouds piled
on each other
on treetops
15/1/10
kookaburra
through the kitchen window
looks us over
butcher bird
on the veranda
nods its head
22/1/10
‘My life has begun,’
he writes, moving out of mine —
someone else’s son.
****************
lightning out there
the edge of the cyclone
rattling the dark
28/1/10
and a new neighbour
waving
5/1/10
the wind chimes are up
boxes out of the living room
bit by bit new home
7/1/10
mountains
from every window
thick with trees
******
outside the pane
a pair of lizards
stopped for gazing
11/1/10
in the hottest hours
even the ants
are still
14/1/10
clouds piled
on each other
on treetops
15/1/10
kookaburra
through the kitchen window
looks us over
butcher bird
on the veranda
nods its head
22/1/10
‘My life has begun,’
he writes, moving out of mine —
someone else’s son.
****************
lightning out there
the edge of the cyclone
rattling the dark
28/1/10
20 January 2010
The seasons turn: haiku for December 2009
4/12/09
the glow dims
in her cat‘s eyes
when she leaves
5/12/09
lightning and thunder
punctuate our summer
but snow is foreign
***
the seasons turn
the creek is blue and full
soon we'll swim
6/12/09
a xmas of stars
and dragonflies
who needs Santa?
7/12/09
Inspired by Bette Norcross Wappner’s woodcut:
trees and air
and midnight
falling snow
11/12/09
like my cats
the plants are very still
this hot morning
13/12/09
step by step
we arrive home
together
18/12/09
early light
through palm fronds
a few more days
24/12/09
Christmas Eve sirens
the firies* drive round tooting
we wave and we cheer
*Aussie for firefighters
************************
summer hots up
the creek’s at high tide
but I’m packing
the glow dims
in her cat‘s eyes
when she leaves
5/12/09
lightning and thunder
punctuate our summer
but snow is foreign
***
the seasons turn
the creek is blue and full
soon we'll swim
6/12/09
a xmas of stars
and dragonflies
who needs Santa?
7/12/09
Inspired by Bette Norcross Wappner’s woodcut:
trees and air
and midnight
falling snow
11/12/09
like my cats
the plants are very still
this hot morning
13/12/09
step by step
we arrive home
together
18/12/09
early light
through palm fronds
a few more days
24/12/09
Christmas Eve sirens
the firies* drive round tooting
we wave and we cheer
*Aussie for firefighters
************************
summer hots up
the creek’s at high tide
but I’m packing
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
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
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
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...
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
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
13 December 2009
Crisis
I can no longer hear
my own poetic voice.
I hunt in my last four years
for a new chapbook;
everything I find
is grey, unmoving, dead.
Those I thought
were finished poems
turn out to be drafts,
those I thought drafts
are discards.
How can my friends
have praised
these lifeless lumps
of verse?
Now I am on
the other side
of the fence
with those who asked,
bewildered,
what makes this
not prose?
Rapidly this lack
of song, colour, blood
pervades all else there is.
This must be
depression, I think,
that affliction
which others know.
I know I must stop
writing poems.
Now. Here,
let me explain ...
my own poetic voice.
I hunt in my last four years
for a new chapbook;
everything I find
is grey, unmoving, dead.
Those I thought
were finished poems
turn out to be drafts,
those I thought drafts
are discards.
How can my friends
have praised
these lifeless lumps
of verse?
Now I am on
the other side
of the fence
with those who asked,
bewildered,
what makes this
not prose?
Rapidly this lack
of song, colour, blood
pervades all else there is.
This must be
depression, I think,
that affliction
which others know.
I know I must stop
writing poems.
Now. Here,
let me explain ...
10 December 2009
Living Beauty
for Lisa
I am swamped in beauty
thick with it, deep in delight.
There is no self, only sense.
Each grass blade
sings with colour,
each floating cloud-wisp
endlessly, easily changes shape.
Sky and earth around me
cradle me. The sun is my mother.
As I slowly separate,
experiencing ends of fingers
containment of skin,
the looker and listener
inside my eyes and ears
wants. Hungers.
Beauty is all.
Let it flow through me,
let me be it, be that,
be all expressions of that.
Let me shake with music,
radiate light,
let my exquisite perfume
cause you to faint with pleasure,
let my touch be that you return to
over and over, and my taste
titillate your tongue forever.
Finding I cannot sing sweet,
and face and form only average fair,
how can I gift my world
with the beauty I long to express?
How can I channel it through me
at one with the beautiful
earth, sky, universe?
Words are my answer
words are my dream
words are my burst of light.
World, I give you back yourself
in words, in love, in myself, in beauty.
I am swamped in beauty
thick with it, deep in delight.
There is no self, only sense.
Each grass blade
sings with colour,
each floating cloud-wisp
endlessly, easily changes shape.
Sky and earth around me
cradle me. The sun is my mother.
As I slowly separate,
experiencing ends of fingers
containment of skin,
the looker and listener
inside my eyes and ears
wants. Hungers.
Beauty is all.
Let it flow through me,
let me be it, be that,
be all expressions of that.
Let me shake with music,
radiate light,
let my exquisite perfume
cause you to faint with pleasure,
let my touch be that you return to
over and over, and my taste
titillate your tongue forever.
Finding I cannot sing sweet,
and face and form only average fair,
how can I gift my world
with the beauty I long to express?
How can I channel it through me
at one with the beautiful
earth, sky, universe?
Words are my answer
words are my dream
words are my burst of light.
World, I give you back yourself
in words, in love, in myself, in beauty.
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