Reflect the blue

Cars travel up the road,
rain-splashed waves bow
from their tyres, clay
from the removal home
washed away into the drain.
Drains carry dirt, and slime
and history, and they take it
from the streets drag it to the sea
where it becomes but one drop
in the oceans and I wonder if the oceans
are filled with history, with lives
and death, with the dregs
of removed houses, the blood
of wounded souls. And if this is so,
why are the oceans green
and not red. At least now I know
why they reflect the blue.

One of those days

If it were true,
I'd say it was the time of the month
but I'm beyond those seasonal shifts
so now I just say it's a Limbo Day
the kind where I can't settle,
can't sit doing one job
until it's completed, can't draw
or paint or clean or dance, can't
even write with a steady hand.
Maybe it's my sugar levels
or maybe, just maybe
it's one of those days.

Bumpy roads

They look outside
and see nothing but stars
guiding their eyes
down a path
strewn with little rocks,
the kind that stick
in your bare foot
and make you limp
for a week. They'll walk
it anyway, they have to -
it's in their destiny like
birth and love and death
and this winter
when snow covers everything
with that white layer of paste,
masks the sharp edges,
softens the blow, they'll walk
watching the stars
and wishing on make-believe dreams
that all stones
are smooth, and all bumpy roads
have been cleared, just
for them.

Sometimes moths are blue

On the edge of my garden
hovers a moth, a blue
winged moth that almost
blends with the lavender. Now
and again it lifts
to fly a little and settle
on another blossom spike.
I wonder if there are blue
moths elsewhere, if anyone
has the time to notice
how their wings gently clap
together, if they can see
the beauty that's outside, waiting.

Some photos have soul

Sometimes a photo will do it,
center my thoughts
like an arrow pierced
by another arrow
on route to the bullseye,
a photo that turns a moment
into a three dimension gift,
unwrapped and there
just for me to witness.
You know they say
a picture is worth a thousand words
but really sometimes we can write
when the photo speaks to our soul
and we can write in words
carried from the creator
and it matters not
that they contain abstract notions
without concrete form for our focus,
it only matters that we can write
what our soul craves to sing.

Sometimes its unpleasant

The room takes on a different hue
where edges blur
not from tears
waiting to pour, but pain
that grips the belly with claws

extended, inserted, ready
to rip the empty stomach
from its life source. Blood

pound heard in the mind
hurtles through veins
until walls turn black
and the mirror
reflects nothing

except the bitter bile
swallowed.

Watch out for bumble bees

When I was little
I ignored bumble bees.
I watched daisies
and dandelions
and avoided wasps
as they waited on yellow,
poised to puncture
the foot of a supposed
predator. Now
it's the mumbling,
bumbling of fat bees
that I survey hovering
around the lavender,
hung drunkenly in mid-air
looking as if at any moment
their girth will thicken
and send them hurtling
to the ground
at my feet.

Good Morning

There was a moment today
when I saw you in the light
creeping through the cottage.
I opened the curtain

and realised you were cloud
embracing morning. Cloud
settling on snow. High
country farming hidden

in the dawn heralded
by bellbirds, broken
only by the blue day
and beeches below.

just one more before i go on holiday, hope you like it.


The joy of a child

Not only am I sun-kissed
but I carry stars in my palm,
blue stars that I might have caught -
though it is known a star may fall
it cannot be caught,
held tight,
carried about like a dream.
My blue stars fell
from the round eyes of children
and I carry them,
feather-weight gifts
with palm pressed to heart
so I will never forget
the pleasures of learning
next to them.

Parent teacher interviews are coming soon

It hurts to stand
to speak
to a crowd of strangers, eyes
focused on one
spot, that slippery space
between my eyes, above
flushed pink cheeks, painted
and primed for just such an event
as this, the gathering
of the guardians.

A season's change

Yesterday there were rosellas
in the weeping cherry,
eating leaf buds and wiping beaks
on naked boughs. Today

finches are fannying about
tempting me out
into late winter, bouncing
on branches wringing raindrops
to the ground. I'll go out there

and sure as eggs is eggs
the sun will kiss my cheek,
the wind will give me bed hair
and puddle-mud will ooze
between my toes.

Grandmother's garden held treasures

Her garden was delightful.
Pansies lined the rose bed
dahlias leaned one side of the fence
and six foot sun flowers
the other. Down
the back was an old tree,
branches dead underneath.
I used to sit in there, in
my imaginary house
where the sun streamed
in and lit the words
on the pages of my books
until they flared to life
transporting me to islands,
caves and castles. I was
a damsel desiring her knight,
a queen captured by a pirate
but most of all, I was somebody
in a world that had forgotten
I was me.

Seven days a week

Dad would sit for hours
on the grey Massey Fergusson
tractor, harrowing the soil
turning sods and re-turning
them until they bent,
crumbled like gold dust.
The land chose when to give
back to him, to repay
him for the year's nurturing
harrow and manure, hoeing
weeds, unchoking plants.
He'd work the ground
until the ground worked him,
gave to him
in a hand to mouth
existence where sometimes
the hand was empty.
He worked as blisters burst,
from sun up to beyond
sun down. In those days
we were richer
than the soil.

All that matters is here

The door is open
I know where it leads
but hold back from walking through,
taking that step out
into a world that gleams
beyond the windows, green

grass and red roses
and laughter.

I don't want to leave today.

Yesterday I might have
in a fit, in a fit
of pique or pain
or downright rage,
the kind that makes me scratch

my nails on plastered walls

or slam doors so cracks appear
in the woodwork. Today
I want to wallow

to wade and not swallow
the self pity that's wrapped
itself about my body, to bathe

and burst hot bubbles
and sup champagne
or cognac
and smoke fat cigars

and watch the cat
sleep.

Sometimes


Sometimes,
when the rain lands just so
on the window pane, I think
of you. The world outside

blurs and I remember when
you brought clarity, when
you brought butterflies
and showed me snail trails,
carrying innocence on your fingertips

between the grains of dirt
that you'd dug up to show
me where worms lived,
and you gifted me
with stars

that had fallen from the sky
and gathered in your eyes. Now
you've moved on, gone
to ground in a place
beyond my arms where

I can never follow.
Yet on winter days
the memories will still surface
in raindrops that pool
below the pane.

He does listen

There are moments in the day
when thoughts whizz
through my mind, thoughts
that begin with the lightest touch
as an eye rests on a butterfly wing,
the monarch's ball gown shimmering
as it dances through my garden.
From there I feel, touched
by the breath of a bumble bee
and dazed by the upturned face
of a dandelion that squirms
when ants wander her nooks
and crannies to sup summer
from her petals. There were times
when I felt alone and was blind
to the simple delights
at my feet. I learned to believe
and asked for my eyes to be opened.
Now, I can see.

Sometimes the dark is nothing

They wander along the beach, search
the horizon for ships
or bottles, clear
messages of need carried by
a powerless sea that licks footprints
from the sand under the sun's
copper-beaten glow. I remember
the salt claiming skin, the tightening
of dreams until all that was left
was the breeze in the dark.

The Song of the Spring

The creek sings
the chorus
as it bubbles
through the forest.
Native ferns
sprout - new life
nurtured with steam
that settles
on petals and leaves
the forest fresh
faced.

Sometimes home is blue

She wears Wedgewood blue
like a double-breasted cloak,
a reminder of her mother
and tiny dishes on the dresser
that held knick knacks
and memories of home.

Some things will be remembered forever

I wanted to return to that place,
that cottage at the end
of the steep, twisted driveway
where Nana taught me
how to bake pies,
blackcurrant pies
we would eat
with ice cream
and Rodd silver spoons
that now sit in their box,
tarnished.
But now there's motorway
snaking through the countryside
and the white cottage exists
only in my memory.