-
sharing pomegranates and the language of flowers
and of course
there had been flowers
passed between them –
fretful fingers plucking
at language unlearned,
accidentally unsaying
the unspoken.
-
there can be no forward without knowing the way we came –
like a cup
of water into sand
i have poured myself –
tasting the dry dust scrape
of the thirst of this place.
words cannot shape
this thick tongued wind
into longing when
we don’t yet know
we are lost.
there is a river that runs
sweet water to the ocean
along the shore
at the edge of tomorrow.shall i meet you there,
-
summoner’s song
turtle dove
calls down the evening
from the fast shadowing trees
in words soft round as a tongue-held
raspberry, sweet in the mouth as a
prayer of thanks for sun-warmed
days and bare-armed dresses
with deep pockets full
of small ripe
peppers
and
tangy
greens
plantain,
chard
and dandelion
that taste of old words new remembered in the silence of a garden,
with the world holding its breath while a turtle dove sings the evening
with incantations soft and round.A concrete poem for the Napowrimo Day 9 prompt.
-
nothing less
there is nothing
to be found here
but that
that always was.
breath hard against
this new taste of cold,
the moon no more
than a smudge
in a darkening sky.
and yet even now
this silence between rain squalls
holds memories of nightjars
trilling somersault wings
among the stars. -
#6
she said the way her veil fell,
the drape of cloth, the colour,
was poetry.
but i could not see
what she saw and wondered
which metaphor came first –
falling veils and what we know
about everything,
about the world,
about being women –
and what is being hidden
or revealed.or wearing poetry
(like your heart on your sleeve)
as an act of resistance. -
regressive behaviour
day ten of national lockdown
finds me, sunday morning,
pants rolled up above the knees –
catching tadpoles on the clay bank
of the garden swale.
citizen science i tell myself
silent giggling, squish mud intent –
lurching after the the slippery platanna
i had blind netted under the lily pad –
though i am not sure
which of us was more surprised.
finally catching and dropping the large frog
into my waiting jars
of rainwater and tadpoles.once photographed and
accidentally released
on the diningroom table –
caught, apologised to and released
back into the pond it came from,
i identified the handful of frog
and its transparent offspring
as xenopus laevis – the mostly aquatic,
and fairly enigmatic despite its name –
common platanna. -
navigating timelines
i waited for the stars
through the setting sun,
lingering smell of bushfire
painting feather clouds
into bright birds.
i waited for the stars
because in dream,
after the end of the world,
when all that was needed
was done, the stars came
brighter than any stars
i had seen before,
like sunlight catching
quiet ripples in deep water. -
foretelling
how did the cicadas know
to sing this strange summer –
two days of bare arms,
melted cats and the loud
growing of greens,
tendrilled peas pulling
tender leaves up the trellis.sunday brings rain
and we turn once more
to the quieting of the year.
-
22 van riebeeck avenue
(it is true
our street was named
for the first white settler
who visited these shores
with intent –
in the seventies
we thought this was ok)it was a childhood
drawing of a house
door
window window
walls bright yellow painted bricks.slightly to the right
but still mostly in front,
a jacaranda tree in full bloom
spilling spent flowers purple
on the roof, grass and pathin the foreground, my cat
black like a hole in the day sky
alight with stars.
green eyes that see me,
careful paws
neat tucked beneath him
while he waited
on the low front wall
for my return.inside, in my mind,
all was beige –
outside the world lived loud
and in colour.
-
bundling brushwood for the fire
my words are few
under this greying sky,
wind tossing the trees
among clouds that smell of rain
while the goats stand by,
watching in a reverent silence
punctuated only by the drag of branch,
snap of twigs.i had cut back the brambles yesterday –
cool under a distant blue sky,
picked my way
through the snagging thorns
hands careful as a bushbuck
in crack dry undergrowth.
clipping and pulling out
the jagged canes of new growth
that were closing the path,
revealing strangled branches
of anisodontea and leonotis beneath.today – late afternoon
i gather the brushwood.
my hands snapping and
folding the small branches
into bundles of startwood
by muscle memory,
of lives and lives lived
on forests’ edge –
measuring the brush,
knowing strength of hand and stick,
gripping and folding
and snapping and folding again,
until days worth of bundles
rest on my hip as
i make my way home.autumn has come,
the fires are lit.