wheelchair paused
beside the white clematis
he breathes spring
in this lavender air
a flutter of dove wings

through misty drizzle
a pigeon coo-cooing
coo-cooing ---
no clear idea now
of the best path to take

this is home
full of family photos
this is home
where a white dog lives
with our memories

unable to write
jammed between commuters
this solstice morning
daylight lengthens
my time grows less

above the clothes' line
a Qantas jet flies straight
along its course ---
your shirt sleeves and my stockings
knotted in the wash

a student
defends her dissertation
to silvered scholars ---
somewhere in the ceiling
sparrows chirp

Ladies' lingerie in a large department store, next to the elevator. I'm buying a bra. Beside me stands a very old gentleman leaning on a wheeled walker. He is soft-faced, white-haired and drooping, like a tired bell flower. He's paying for something, I think his store account. He has cash in his wallet, which he lays out slowly and carefully, note by note. The salesperson says she won't keep me waiting long. I laugh and say ‘No problem, I was in a sort of daze. I have to do battle with my health insurer next, so I don't mind waiting'.

I'm much taller than the old man, and covertly glance down at his profile, his fine pink skin flecked with age and sunspots, the vulnerability of his shiny scalp through baby-fluff hair. His voice is clear and well-modulated, with a dry, humorous edge. I think I would like to sit down with this man and talk about things we remember, things we enjoy, things which make us happy, things which make us weep. The old man thanks the cashier, turns before he leaves to bid me good-day, and good luck with the health insurer. I say goodbye and think of age, and death, and loss, and pain, and sorrow.

wishing again
i could conjure up
all the loved faces
a news report listing
the ages of the dead

spent morning hours
recouping my every step
through garden paths...
I'm sure my glasses hung
around my neck at the start

 
dinosaurs once roamed
around the wollemi pines,
now we grow them
in large garden pots
on shady verandahs

bulldozers
in Kuala Lumpur city
wake us at dawn ---
Games' building continues
despite the muezzin's call

 
home in the old forge
you gaze over the downs
towards the sea ---
a camera can record
images not private thoughts

brass keyholes
large enough to peer through
and dovetail joinery
symbols of security
I thought would last through life

 
rummaging
in Grandma's button box
for new eyes for bunny...
a buttonhook,a thimble,
a dancecard with Grandpa's name

wet washing
and her reading chair
chase the sun
around three verandahs
of her valley farmhouse

75,000

transported for life

first fleet crammed belowdecks

three-pennorth of sugar a stolen bonnet

women’s factory the hard weight of a leg-iron

thumbprints in a brick the night-breathing of walls

morning prayer out of solitary arrowed shirts scuffing beeswax

pregnant on remand a vagrant boy in an unconsecrated church

sharks patrol Point Puer two last lost children hold hands jump

friendly warder a woman off latrine duty owes him big-time

iron maiden evening piano recital for the governor’s lady

felling Huon pine logs cat-o’-nine tails superintends

convict songs chain gangs gone bush in the Tiers

stone clatter on tin throw out yer tea sugar missus

starving dog his dinner companions dead reckoning

today’s hunt loosing the hound pack break-back broken

island-bound by an isthmus hanged by the neck until dead

isle death row after row of convict cairns all fallen crooked

remittance man a ration of grog for the manumitted couple

blanks in the family album we never talk about it dear

they declare the stain may prove indelible milord

proximal phalanges o the shame of it

sharp needles of

l.o.v.e.

sharp spikes
of the holly's leaves ---
so much easier
to recall your sharp words
than your life's achievements

 
on this night
rain tumbles from the sky
why can't I
release the sorrow
dammed in my heart

each word 
weighed, rehearsed
rejected
no easy way
to say these things to you

nursing home visit,
he arms himself with
daffodils
and thoughts of other springtimes
when she remembered his name

 
the rising sun paints
a pathway from shore
to horizon...
do I have the courage
to begin a new journey?

 
lazy afternoon
a penny lizard speeds
under the arch
of my bare foot... living,
such a risky business

lately, at night
a colony of fruit bats
arrives at my place...
refugees perhaps,
without any papers

 
soccer match
play moves downfield...
from above
a kookaburra swoops,
scores a freshly turned worm

the surgeon
connects a new heart
to your chest,
and now begins
our menage a trois
 

you boast
your elegant luggage
is bullet-proof ---
I never knew your heart
was also impregnable

morning
tae kwon do... a cockatoo
on the branch
overhead rehearses
its own routine

 
global warming ---
the ship's prow fractures
ancient icebergs
while you fret about cubes
melting in your whisky

I trace the outline
of your mastectomy scar
the raw edge
of making love again
for the first time

 
stags call
among the falling maples
of Nara ---
losing myself in crowds,
finding myself, in you

 
neat folds
followed by crisp creases
the pattern
for paper cranes  and my life
deceptively simple

oil slick
slinks across the surface
of the sea...
to cook my pasta
I add oil to water

 
a cat crouches
waits in long grass,
eyes glinting ---
you tense, scribbling notes
at every reading of my poems

the ferry race
goes on without us
this year
after many false starts
her dementia wins

 
burning sun...
cicadas thrum
their ardour
into the heart of summer
heat meeting heat

 
she offers
herself as subject matter
to the artist ---
shadows lace their bodies
and a long wintering begins

In a drawer she keeps them, his chestful of medals. In a Schiaparelli nylons box faintly scented with Shocking, which looks as old as they are. Did he give her the stockings when he came home from leave? Or when he returned, a half-broken man?

sound of a bugle
the shine in the eyes
of my mother
.
Lest We Forget
ANZAC DAY, 2018

passing shower
just enough to wet
the wind

Autumn Moon 1:1, December 2017