-
autumn equinox 2020: it is all about the balance.
i have parked my car
and hung up my keys,
stood a while at the gate
listening for the silence
of settling dust –
there is so much to be done now
that starts with undoing,
but for now we wait
for the growing moon
to plant our seeds
in new turned earth.
-
in march we shear the goats
there is no talking
as it would break the spell
and wake serena
who sleeps with woolly breaths,
her head on my shoulder
on a slow autumn afternoon.
sewing scissors in hand
i free the goat from the pile of curls,
gathering the fleece
for winter spinning -
ancestral obligations
for now
birds still sing
the evening,
while somewhere in the house
there is ukulele and talk,
and the steady knife to board
rhythm of chopping vegetables(but out there –
out there the streets have turned to silence,
there is pause and breath and wait –
and all the sanitiser in the world
is not going to wash our hands
of this, because we knew
and we knew
there was bound to be a reckoning)and it all
always happens
in the kitchen,
the eating of the earth
and the stories
that taste of soil,
where the door
has been left ajar
showing the shadowy stairs
to the underworld
where the old myths
have been keeping pace with us
all along – black dogs with pink tongues
lolloping beside us
for thousands of years,
waiting for this silence
and our courage
to accept the task. -
greens
already
seedlings have pushed
dark soil, spread dicotyledons
to the changing sun,
spoken the season
green and tender. -
rescheduling
tomorrow morning i sink
my feet into the earth
and breathe
with the world
through these changes. -
on a declared national state of disaster
what if our hearts
don’t have borders
and love lives
a long way
away. -
nox
it was full dark
before i made my way inside
hands full of cactus dahlias
and roses full blown
before promised rain.these autumn evenings catch me –
sending bats to flit the sky
while i feel the last kiwi cuttings into the soil,
water late season tomatoes new planted.it is better this way,
i am better this way,
finding myself again
in the voluptuous impossible
of the garden
doing what needs to be done.
-
inculpable
our bodies,
inculpably vulnerable
and spilling with light,
cannot betray us
any more than we
can betray the earth our body. -
account
did we think the birds
would not sing
this ending too,
that the morning sky
would no longer
disrupt the waiting dark,
pull mountain and horizon
from the deep red start.
did we think
we would not feel
this change wind blow.this too will fall away.
we are children
of this earth and sky,
our bodies shaped seasons.
let us speak now
the precious honesty
of bare boned trees in winter,
there will be time still
for birds
to sing the season. -
tea
i have spread
fragrant petals
on my desk to dry,
there is strong medicine
in the delicate pink
of the rose that lived
full bloom
to the storm.