Unanswered Messages

Oh, what mystery there is in silence! The mind rushes in to fill the void with imaginings. You are no longer the dear you I think I knew before; you become an amorphous, shifting proliferation of possibilities. The human mind is hard-wired to attach meanings to all phenomena. So the absence of communication doesn't stay simply that; I make it mean this about me and that about you, many thises and thats. I make it mean that someone is wrong, someone is to be blamed. I did something wrong, therefore you don't communicate. Or your non-communication is you doing something wrong. Or maybe neither: perhaps circumstances are to blame. Perhaps your computer is broken, or lost, or stolen. Perhaps you are busy, or tired, or sick, or dead. Something is to blame, something is wrong. It cannot just be: a thing in itself. Nature doesn't abhor a vacuum nearly as much as that part of nature called the human mind does.

the air turns cold
after the sound of rain
ceases


I came across this journal entry from some time ago – the prose piece – and thought it just needed a verse added to become a haibun.

Linking to The Tuesday Platform for Feb 6 2018 at "imaginary garden with real toads".  I am shifting my (future) poetry to a new blog, which I did not anticipate when I posted this one. It seems kinda appropriate / ironic that the last one here is about unanswered messages, which might even be unread – so, by linking, I am making sure it is read!

How Do You Like Your Blue-Eyed Boy, Mister Death?

Thank you, I like him fine.

Buffalo Bill will never 

not be handsome now,

and his prowess won’t deteriorate.

And when I give him back

to the cradling earth again

– for I don’t get to keep them, you know –

dressed in a new body and sporting a new name

perhaps you’ll meet him once more, in a different dream 

… unless it is you I am holding then. 

Unless it is you I lead by the hand
to your new, true awakening….

At "imaginary garden with real toads" Brendan asks us to "dance with a ghost", i.e. to respond to another poem. (Well no, it was to play tennis, but I prefer to dance.) The original e. e. cummings poem is one of my favourites – and hey, if someone's "defunct", they're really a ghost! (I have read the cummings poem bitterly in the past, identifying with the questioner. So in a way I am here talking to myself, using Death's voice to persuade myself of a different, kinder perspective.)

The "different dream" is an allusion to the final passage of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, and in Death leading one by the hand I was recalling Sir Terry Pratchett's lovely posthumous tweet (involving his fictional character, Death).

The Opening of Doors

I usually barge right on through, and usually

there is some light on the other side, even

when one might think I’d have done better

to leave that door shut. Sooner or later 

there is always light – some – and  often

a late burst of unexpected brilliance … and

sometimes the door opens onto sustained

sunlight, and I need only enter and bask.

And there are times when I’m just here, 

and a door opens to let someone else 

come through, towards me, and that 

can be sweet or exciting or possibly

nothing at all – but nothing demands nothing, 

which is restful; and so, one way or another,

I tend to like it when doors open: I tend to see it 

as a good thing … for the most part, anyway.

Best of all is when doors become irrelevant:

when, instead of traversing some boundary or

entry, some turning-point or edge, we rise

skyward, unfettered, on waves of pure thought:

lifting into flight, cavorting on clouds, floating

and dancing in long arabesques, ethereal

pirouettes … which pleasure is encompassed

even better together, and so let our minds 

entwine. Meet me in the middle of the air!

The final sentence is stolen from a Paul Kelly song based on the 23rd Psalm. This particular line, which he inserts into it, is by Kelly himself and not the psalmist – and has different connotations from those I give it here.

This poem was inspired by the Doorway(s) prompt at Poets United this week.

And What If Light?

‘And what if light surrounds us like a song –

or what if we are made of singing light?

You cannot prove these propositions wrong,

no more than I can prove that they are right.

Yet what if we had known it all along –

that light and music meld beyond sound/sight?

What difference might it make to you and I?

Perhaps we’d live more lightly, perhaps fly.’

He whispered these reflections to the air,

sending them out upon a rising breath –

then bent again to tend the garden, where

beneath the plaques folk rested in their death.

A woman came towards him, crying, ‘There

is where I want my dears, in solid earth

where I can come and talk to them and pray.’

Her tread was heavy as she moved away.

Around the grave-beds, grasses, flowers and trees

firm-anchored in the soil, while stretching high

into the air, moved slightly in a breeze

as if they danced – as if they’d almost fly.

Wind in the leaves made soft noise; humming bees

thronged the flowers. The sun rose in the sky.

The insects and the birds moved through the day,

uncaring of what he and she might say.

Another ottava rima for the Poetic Asides form challenge.
Also shared at the latest Tuesday Platform, for 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Random

Letting the pen flow

any old where across the mind

(you thought I’d say ‘page’, but

no, it’s the mind that the pen

– my pen – traverses at

random) I find myself

in glades of light, filtering

through tall, leafy trees –

in this country, we don’t

do deciduous, and anyway,

now is summer, and we feast

on and in the sunlit green.

Or I find myself (at

the tip of my flowing pen)

in deep, dark caves, which

nevertheless spell ‘home’, being

womb-like. Or else I wander

to a phone-call from a brother,

wishing me Happy Solstice.

(Will you fly? he asks.) 
I like the randomness of things,

of scribbling, though we pretend

there is order and reason. Ha!

My pen knows better. And my mind.

Written in response to a prompt from Karin Gustafson at 'imaginary garden with real toads', Writing Exercise (For Days of Little Time/ No Muse) in which we are asked to think of a letter, then a word, and go-go-go. 

Early and Late

(Fire, then ice)

Initially, passion shocked 

my mouth open,

made my toes 

curl tight, uncurl….

Finally, your touch

in its lack

chills my skin,
slows my blood.

A belated attempt to respond to the recent prompt, Micro Poetry ~ Fire and Ice, at 'imaginary garden with real toads'. 
Also written for THE POETRY OF THREE, Three Words Per Line on facebook. 
And linked to The Tuesday Platform for 30 Jan. 2018 at "imaginary garden with real toads".

January Moments

In my dark garden
wind chimes clang faintly, I breathe
the smell of the sea.

Steamy nights

on this tree-thick hill;
my grey cat 
sits silent 

on the top step, keeping guard

while we toss in heat.

Like my cats

the plants are very still
this hot morning.

The heat revs up
as the morning brightens.
What time today
will humid rains kick in?
Summer at full throttle.

Downpour.

At last a bud
on the rosebush.

Quiet –

the rain pauses
waiting.

Trying to come up with a poem for the new year, and uninspired, I looked through several years of micropoetry written in January, selected one from each year (with a bit of tweaking to some, on seeing them anew) and found that they could be read as a sequence. 

Change and Light

As spirit animal, the dragonfly is connected to the symbolism of change and light. – Elena Harris: Dragonfly Spirit Animal and Totem

When she came to see him in the hospital 

when we knew he was dying, she said,

'On my way here I received a message.

I am to tell you to arrange with Rosemary

a sign, so that after you move

to a different dimension, whenever

you are with her, she will know. It might, 

for instance, be a butterfly.'

After she left, we talked and decided

butterflies are too common. I could easily

explain them away as not really

signifying. I had to be surer, so

we chose instead the dragonfly – 

seen in these parts, yes, but so rarely    

as to be significant. And it has been so – at first

those moments when I missed him most acutely.

Dragonflies would burst from a bush

right into my face, or land on the door of my car

just as I was about to open it, or skim across

a rocky pool ... always in immediate

response to my thought. Sometimes I would even

open a magazine straight to a picture.

Then, at a Sunday market in a strange town,

I found an antique mourning brooch.

It is crafted from woven hair, in the shape

of a dragonfly with all four wings outspread.

I took it to mean he is always with me, 

or can be any time I choose to bring him present.

I wear it seldom now. My need is less. Assured

that he is close, I can live without reminders. (Only

sometimes, still, if I have a moment of sadness,

a living dragonfly appears from nowhere, and I know.)

Written in response to Bits of Inspiration ~ Dragonfly at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Petals and Thorns

They burn, oh!

my petals burn

light has elapsed 

only these briars

glow eerily now

the setting sun

reddens the thorns,

their pointed tips

in the garden –

a garden enclosed

in dying light –

my petals flame.

Written for Micro Poetry ~ Binding with Briars at 'imaginary garden with real toads', and for facebook's The Poetry of Three. (Inspired – loosely – by Blake's 'The Garden of Love'.)

Published in HAVE YOUR CHILL, July 2018.

Full Moon, Dark Moon

The Full Moon

huge and golden

seemed to bounce

to our rhythm

as we rode

that tiny motorbike, 

hired from strangers,

fast and eager

alongside the paddies –

to make love

our first time,

in dreamy Bali.

Many months later,

back in Melbourne,

I heard you

that last time –

riding away forever,

further and further,

your own bike

large and purring

across the night,

while I lay 

awake, listening long,

at Dark Moon.

Written for Poets United's Midweek Motif ~ Dark Moon, New Moon

Also written for the facebook group THE POETRY OF THREE, Three Words Per Line

Return Journey?

"How was it, coming back

after hard adventures

to normal?"

                     I've never 

known normal. My path leads 

ever on; a wild track.

We Gathered in the Sacred Grove

We then fanned out into the forest, each of us picking a tree:

our brothers and sisters who, like us, love you, Goddess of Light.

Goddess of Shining Light, we see your radiance; let it be

that which awakens us from the fearsome horrors of the night.

You are arising and shining, Goddess of the Forest. See,

we are here, who adore you – you limpid flame, you flaring bright.

Each of us stands with a tree, side by side, sharing all we be.

It is a custom here, and so it seems to us good and right.

We sing with strong voices; our breath, helped by the trees, pouring free.

Joining together to love you, we become one in your sight.

This ancient ceremony

is yours: oh love, oh delight!

Written for the Meme prompt at 'imaginary garden with real toads': using the 7th sentence on page 13 of a handy book as inspiration for a love poem.

The first line of this poem is the sentence, or as much of it as was on the page. The book (read as an ebook, so page numbers don't necessarily conform to the paperback edition) is Fairies of the Wild Wild Moon by Vyvyan Ogma Wyverne. It seemed fitting, given the source, to make this a love poem to the Goddess.

It also seems to fit with Poets United's Midweek Motif ~ Nature: Her Words

And it's an attempt at the chanso form recently aired at Poetic Asides.

Sonnet Written Upon a Tim Tam

As requested by my friend Jim 

Yesterday I posted on facebook my pleasure

at eating Tim Tams and reading sonnets 

simultaneously, whilst also sitting in the sun

with my sweet cat. This post got a lot of likes. 

Then one friend asked, intending jocularity, 

'When will you publish "Sonnet Written 

Upon a Tim Tam"?' Why not? I thought, 

and replied, 'Tomorrow' – which is now today.

The taste is something between chocolate

and honey, a blend, and the texture also mixed:

creamy soft outside, the centre crisp yet melting. 

It takes six bites – or sometimes only four –

to savour and devour one whole, from the first

burst of joy in the mouth to the last lingering lick.

Linked to Meeting the Bar: Neruda and the free verse sonnet 
at dVerse Poets Pub.

Also linking to dVerse's 2019 Sonnet Challenge.

I felt proud of myself in writing this one, both for rising to my friend's challenge and because I had some glee in using the sonnet form for such non-exalted subject matter. (I used to be intimidated by the idea of attempting a sonnet, but Samuel Peralta cured me of that when he was on the dVerse team of presenters. He taught us a variety of sonnet forms and made them all seem delightfully easy.)

Making the Gaps Wider

She knew my kind.

'You want to show off,' she said.

'If you think you can here, you’re wrong.'

'No no,' I said, 'I only came to play.
I came for the games, the fun.

I don't expect anything else.'

But she was crying. (She'd felt scared.
The boys had been fighting just next door.)

'Leave me alone!' she said.

All her pain

came into me and filled me.

It felt like mine.

'Stop pushing in,' she said.
'Anyway you're late. It's over. 

I'm closing the gates now.'

I should have shut up then

and gone away. But I wanted

the hurting to stop.

The more I tried to explain, 

the more she closed her ears.

And her mouth. And turned away.

I thought I heard her say,

'I never invited you 

to this party.'

Next time I went to look,

they were all playing again

inside her garden.

I suddenly realised

they spoke to each other in secret code.

I went away.

Light

for Sharon

Learning that light 

folds in on itself

as it simultaneously expands

I think of my friend at five, 

standing in front of a tree

and watching it dissolve

into patterns, into Tree pattern,

then feeling herself as Me pattern

and seeing the landscape fill with light

as all the patterns of all the beings

lit with joy to see her understand –

and I wonder if my experience 

of light swirling and folding, 

condensing and growing, 

irradiating Life,

is anything like her experience 

and the way she has built 

an ecology from seed shapes ...

or is that we 

are separate gods,

or possibly separate ants –

or fragments 

(ourselves

particles of light)?


Linking to Tuesday Platform at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

My Soul Says to My Heart:

Yes, there are horrors going on in the world.

Keep picking up the litter. Turn off the tap.

Gaze at trees where you find them;

touch them if possible.

Drink the sky.

Live now. Do the thing you can.
It is true that people kill people. It is true 

that our governments respond

with their own versions of terror. And 

it is true we are not being told the truth.

So sign a petition, or march, or even 
write a poem. Dream of another country
where there is peace and freedom. Dream

that you have the means to move,

and would be made welcome. Meanwhile….

Go outside. Find a flower or a leaf or

a blade of grass. They will not always

be common. Look at it, stroke it,

breathe its scent.

There is not much time. Get on with it!

An Old Love Story

 A friend on facebook wonders, what is the event she’s marked in her diary as ‘My event’ for August 8. I can’t help her. I can’t guess what significance August 8 might have for her. But the date pierces my heart.

I think, ‘No, that’s my event.’ But it’s not even mine. It was his – his birthday. He died eight days before it in 1982. (Gods, can it be so long?) He would have turned 25.

When I start to have my ‘anniversary reaction’ during the winter months leading up to the date of my dear husband Andrew’s death, in September 2012 when he was 83, that is not the only anniversary I’m reacting to, not the only death. 

My two greatest loves, so far apart in time – how appropriate that it is winter that brings those deaths back for me, with bleak cold. 

Then comes the consciousness of being alone. I don’t normally mind that. I keep busy; I like my own company; I’m content. But at this time of year my aloneness confronts me. It becomes loneliness. It becomes an abyss. Do I hear a wolf howling? I shut my ears, make myself busy….

a sudden chill

the date of your death
arrives again

In the memoir I’m writing, I’ve been frank, so far, about the men I’ve loved. But not this one. This is the one I never speak of – though I do write poems. 

Very few people know what he meant to me. (Few know anything of him at all.) Those who do were there at the time; they saw it all play out. Some others may have guessed, but if so they have never dared ask. 

Really there are only two who understand completely. It has been remarked on between us possibly three or four times in 35 years. The hurt is still deep; and after all, there is nothing useful or even needful to say. We know. We know that we know. That is all. (That is everything.)

our eyes meet

he lives in the unsaid

our friend who died

There was one other. Just one time we spoke of it. We talked for hours; we said everything. We always knew we would. We’d waited years … and still we needed to get drunk together first. He has long disappeared; no contact for decades, no knowledge for either of where the other might be. It’s probably better so. 

Then there was a friend I made much later, who read my selected poems and asked, 'Rosemary, who died, in your life?' (This was long before Andrew died.) So I told her the story, in outline. She could barely grasp it. We have never mentioned it again. That was years ago; I think she has forgotten all about it by now.

did we exist

if no-one knows? 

– Zen koan

Shall I write the tale at last? What could I say that anyone who didn't live it alongside me could possibly understand? I could relate the facts, but what could they truly convey? 

I might tell it one day, but not today.

So was he my true love, the love of my life? Oh, all loves are true! And all loves, when true, are for life. Andrew, with whom I had a life, a happy one for 20 years, is the one I most acutely miss. That other, who died before he was 25 – which was shock as well as grief – has been the longest dead.

After he died, I wrote: All my years / you’ll go on being dead. They stretched before me interminably, then.

All those years ago, I learned everything about intense grief. All these years since, I have come to know that grief never ends, though we learn to live with it. 

I would have died to save him, if it could have saved him. I live on. I mourn. I relish life.

blue skies

you will never see –

winter sun



I didn't share even this very widely at the time I wrote it! Finally linking it, over two years later, to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #498

The Light Seems Holy

The light seems wholly blue when I look out

from my front door, discovering the day:

a day of starkly brilliant winter sun.

The dark blue mountain range right opposite, 

the vast and shining blue of morning sky,

pervade the street below. 'Thou art the one!'

I sing to Life (for God is Life, we're told).

On such a day, my soul must dance and fly

in sheer delight, pure joy that I was born.

This moment is the whole. This truth I hold:

all's one.

Written for a form challenge at Poetic Asides

Now You've Gone and Done It

For Rae

When he wished me Happy Birthday,

I emailed back: '75. So I'm having

a week at least of celebrations. How 

are you going?'  'Running to catch up 

to you,' he said. 'Panting.' (He was

two years younger than me.) But now, 

18 months later, he's gone and stopped.

How could you do that? Now you'll never

catch up! Or is it I, now, who'll always be 

trailing, unable to catch up with him?

Poet Rae Desmond Jones (1941-2017) and I knew each other slightly for many years, and were aware of each other's work, but only really became friends late in life, via the internet. In those recent years I came to treasure his humour, intellect and very sweet nature. I'll miss him!

Linking this to the latest Tuesday Platform at 'imaginary garden with real toads', where change is a theme.

Pubiished in HAVE YOUR CHILL, July 2018

Looking for Myself in 'Peanuts'

1.

All I know is, I’m not Charlie Brown –

don’t play baseball, wouldn’t wear a cap.

I could be Lucy with her bossy frown;

I could be Linus clutching at his blanket.

All I know is, I’m not Charlie Brown.

I might be that romantic, star-crossed blonde

drooling for Linus, only briefly cast down

by rebuffs; or else dedicated-to-his-art Schroeder.

(I’d like to be grown-up Schroeder, with renown.)

Perhaps, writing up a storm, I’m smart Snoopy?

But if so, who would feed me? Charlie Brown?


2. 

I think I’ll be Schroeder,

living (w)hol(l)y for art,

soul-child of Beethoven,

oblivious / impervious to all else. Yes,

I think I’ll be Schroeder.

I don't really think I’m Snoopy,

master of the cliché – moreover

typewriters are old; I love my computer.

Of course he’d need a make-over

from muso to poet (I’m tone-deaf)

but, that sorted, I could be Schroeder.

At 'imaginary garden with real toads', we were invited to find ourselves in cartoon characters in the prompt: Fashion me your words to fold ~ ergo (in less than 100 words). The mention of 'fold' inspired me to use Gillena Cox's Fold form. And then I was moved to write a second one. Each, individually, is under 100 words, but I didn't want to post them separately when they so clearly belong together.