I ... entered the poem of life, whose purpose is ... simply to witness the beauties of the world, to discover the many forms that love can take. (Barabara Blackman in 'Glass After Glass')

These poems are works in progress and may be updated without notice. Nevertheless copyright applies to all writings here and all photos (which are either my own or used with permission). Thank you for your comments. I read and appreciate them all, and reply here to specific points that seem to need it — or as I have the leisure. Otherwise I reciprocate by reading and commenting on your blog posts as much as possible.

29 September 2012

Remembrance


For my mother

Tasmania was mine, mmm, I loved it.  The many colours, many landscapes, the movement of the seasons.  The deep blue mountains, the bright meandering streams.  Silver and golden streams, water and sunlight.  Sunlight streaming on my wide back lawn, which spread like a meadow.  Shimmering grass and shimmering sky.  Fresh springtime mornings, their frosts diminishing, becoming dew.  Summer full of bees, their peaceful hum.  Me on my own, mooning through summer days, meandering round my meadow, humming too.

Winter mists hiding the valleys, climbing the hills, almost veiling the mountains, draping my  familiar town in mystery, magic.  Then melting gradually, by midday gone, the gleaming town new-minted.

Murky rain, black mud; myself muffled in overcoat, cap and mittens.  Gumboots to mid-calf.  Squelch, squelch, I am the master of all this mud!  Hurrying home to the warm, the welcoming  mother.  Tomato soup beside the fire.  My clothes hugging me warm: soft socks and cosy jumper.  Hugging myself with my happy arms.

The taste of tomato soup and mushy brown bread.  The taste of comfort, home.  The flavour of a warm room, safe from the frosts and marauding storms. Summer tastes were fruit - gooseberries, raspberries, nectarines, damson plums...  The purplest of plums, dark purple, thick with juice.  Messy all over my cheeks, staining my hair, covering my  hands to the wrists.  My rich purple lips, my inky tongue.  Mum amazed, aghast at so much mess.  Oh miraculous messy damson plums!  Welcome back to my memory, dreamtime summer fruit.

My summer stretched to encompass all the autumn.  Mellow harvest moons, huge and golden, mimicked the sun.  The sky smiled, the cosmos smiled on me.

'Come home!' the island calls me now.  'You are my child.  Come home, come back, you are mine.'


Published in Secret Leopard. Paris, Alyscamps Press, 2005. (See sidebar.)

(A friend asked if she could read some of my prose poems online. So I thought I'd better post some. See also next post.)


And linking — just a little late! — to Poets United's Mothers' Day 2013 edition of Poets Pantry

13 comments:

  1. OH MY! Thank you so much for sharing this one. I have a whole new appreciation for prose poetry now.

    Your world has come alive in my soul.

    Thank you my talented friend,
    Delaina

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  2. Prose poetry adds that extra element esp when it comes to penning about nature where more the words more is the pleasure of being absorbed. Wonderful piece!

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  3. Lush - exquisite - every sense stroked - ahhhhhhh. Beautiful - the Mother of all smiles :)

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  4. A beautiful place and time brought to us in your words! The plums and soup sound delicious...the whole piece, a lovely read.

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  5. Beautiful. I can picture all so well. I have a good friend in Tasmania...Hobart. An artist aged 85. We were over there twice... Really love Tasmania as well as other areas of Australia. Now you've made me want to return again....but oh, what a long plane trip. LOL.

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    1. Yes, it certainly would be a long trip for you! But how lovely that you have been there. I hope to get back there myself — it's been too long — but will wait until summer.

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    2. PS I'm a Launceston girl myself. :)

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  6. Thanks to all for the kind comments, which I appreciate.

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  7. "the taste of comfort". Indeed!
    such vivid imagery you have painted. :)

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  8. Rosemary, such a beautiful paean to the wonder of Place, and to childhood, and home and happiness. I relished every line, as it reminded me of how I feel about Clayoquot Sound. Such beauty. Just lovely.

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  9. smiles...wonderful memories...the messy plums esp...ha...i can just see your mom aghast as well..ha...ours were the cherry trees....we would come home stained purple...ah a home to come home to...love it

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