“I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.” ~ Vincent van Gogh
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Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Selene Grooms Herself























She washes her white patch of stomach,
then interrupts herself
to listen to a distant bird;

moves around and licks her long tail
and curving flank – bracing herself,
one paw held firm to the ground.

The other, stretched in the air,
balances her as she twists.
Such a serviceable body!

For no particular reason that I can see,
she raises the end of her tail
straight up at a right angle.


(In the photo, she looks up from washing her stomach. After that I was writing, not snapping.)


#awakeaugust day 31


Tuesday, August 30, 2016

My Frangipani Has No Leaves

...the #awakeaugust small stone for day 30, is over here at my other poetry blog ('The Passionate Crone') – because it is also doing duty as a quadrille written for dVerse.


Monday, August 29, 2016

Lunch

She gives me vegetable soup 
in a plastic box with two blue clips.
‘I’ve made it thick,’ she says.
‘You can add more water.
I just throw everything in
and hope it tastes OK.’

It’s still hot when I get back home.
It fills my big white bowl.
I don't dilute it, I eat it thick –
savouring the tastes
of carrot and spinach
and the texture of the potato.

#awakeaugust day 29

Also linking to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #317


Sunday, August 28, 2016

Hunch-Cat

She crouches against
the morning's faint chill,
making herself contained
yet huge to look at, all one lump
with two points of ears;
no stretching limbs.
no undulating torso.







#awakeaugust day 28

Saturday, August 27, 2016

Race Memory?

She jumps up on the ledge
behind the ferns, for a spot
of slinking through the jungle –
the only place for that delight 
in this rather bare little yard.
















#awakeaugust day 27

Friday, August 26, 2016

Foreshore Trees

The scrubby, twisted foreshore trees,
gnomish and squat, 
look like remnants of ancient forest –
perhaps they are.
















#awakeaugust day 26

Thursday, August 25, 2016

Simple Pleasures

My cat has carried 
her favourite toy 
out to the back yard. 
She lies on her blanket 
on the bouncer, and tosses it 
between her front and back paws, 
wriggling and curling and rolling over.

Then she settles a while
to listen to the neighbours’ noises.
Some hammering down the street.
Birds shrilling in next door’s trees.
An electric bike on a near road.

The sun shines after yesterday’s rain.
The pink flowers whose name I forget
are now full and lush. New buds begin.















#awakeaugust day 25

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Wet

It’s been raining all night.
This morning it’s still raining,
coming down steady
in straight lines like a curtain. 

Gutters and pipes drip.
Sounds of big drops hitting the ground 
and pooling. Background sound 
of constant falling: a sustained sigh.


#awakeaugust day 24

Linked to the current Tuesday Platform at 'imaginary garden with real toads'

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Cold Rain Coming

Overcast sky.
Some of the branches against it
are bare and spiky.
I see how, on others,
the tree leaves are entwined
by pale green vines
which will kill them slowly.
Small black mosquitos arrive.




















#awakeaugust day 23

Monday, August 22, 2016

Crossroads

I witness an old friend’s true evil –
in crisis, the mask briefly let slip.
Someone once told me, 
‘He has no heart’.
Mine now feels crushed in my chest.

The well-pruned rose stems
nod in the breeze. The sun shines
on the succulents in the far corner.
The trees are unchanged.
I breathe deep.

But everything has changed.


#awakeaugust day 22

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Spring is Coming!


Suddenly, on the trumpet creeper that covers two fences, there are only two clumps left of the orange blooms that brighten every winter. But in my pot on the ground over there, all the pink buds are bursting into full flower. My cat settles herself in the corner that gets the morning sun. When she comes in later, her fur is warm to the touch.



















#awakeaugust day 21

(This one insists on being prose. A prose-poem, I like to think.)

Saturday, August 20, 2016

In My Quiet Garden

In my quiet garden 
nothing stirs, except the ferns 
idly batting the breeze. Then, 
over the fence an unknown bird
gives high bursts of sweet, 
piercing, repetitive calls. 
I welcome the sound. My cat 
jumps up at once and runs indoors.

















#awakeaugust day 20

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Small Cat

compacting yourself
against morning cold

gazing at the window behind us
its garden reflections

yesterday was early Spring this reversal jars
yet you choose to keep me company

let us go inside leaving the garden 
to dream a while longer of warmth to come




















#awakeaugust day 16

Also written for dVerse Quadrille #14: jar

(A quadrille is exactly 44 words, excluding title. I also wanted to experiment with unpunctuated couplets.)


Monday, August 15, 2016

My Garden in Late Winter

Already the tubular blooms
on the orange trumpet vines
are wilting, are less profuse.

The flowers of winter
that brighten my cold garden
begin to give way to what will come –

the starry pale pinks
that will dot the other, intertwined vine
when spring has fully arrived.

Though this is still officially winter,
here in the sub-tropics, always
it overlaps with spring.

Some flowers are deceived and start early, 
like those deeper pinks in the pot over there,
which Amanda gave me, budding already.



















#awakeaugust day 15

Sunday, August 14, 2016

Suddenly the Jade Bush

Suddenly the jade bush
has bright, fleshy leaves.
Only the other day
it looked bedraggled.

I think of finding it a new pot.
The once-pretty green one it’s in
has several large gouges
around the rim –

where Andrew sat on it 
(better than landing on concrete!)
four years ago,
in one of his last falls.




#awakeaugust day 14

Saturday, August 13, 2016

Hints of Spring

I hang the washing
on the clothesline,
not indoors. My cat
comes out to see.
I think about repotting
the plants on the front step.
A couple of kookaburras
comment raucously.


#awakeaugust day 13

Friday, August 12, 2016

Her Eyes Accuse

I’ve been out all day,
so she’s been in.
I arrive back home
in early evening cold.

She doesn't want food first.
She runs to the back door.
I let her into her courtyard garden.
She wants me to come too,
but I’m busy unloading shopping.

She sits, statuesque,
on top of her mini-trampoline
(yes of course it’s hers)
until dusk has fallen.





















#awakeaugust day 12

Thursday, August 11, 2016

The Last Month of Winter

The days alternate
between sun and rain.
Tiny ants, finer than thread
mass in my kitchen;
when I block one entry point
they find another.
The email from that friend
finally comes, and after all
her daughter has not died.

#awakeaugust day 11

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

My Blue Horizon

I stand on my top step
morning after morning

rejoicing in the sky opposite,
and the undulant line of the mountain –

their many different moods of blue,
on different days, in many weathers.

Today both mountain and sky
are clear and full of light.

















#awakeaugust day 10

Also written for Poetics: Breathing in Blue at dVerse

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Buddha Comes to Live with Me

On a folding screen
for my Reiki space,
his serene face gazes 
at me, and into distance.
Or perhaps he contemplates
inner space. And I
contemplate him, his beauty.
Gazing back at that face,
I'm suddenly unhurried.
I breathe in compassion.
I breathe out peace.




















#awakeaugust day 9

Monday, August 8, 2016

Passing Muster

My cautious cat
runs and hides
when men visit.
Someone has hurt her.

My god-daughter,
travelling interstate,
visits me today
with her new man.

The cat, though wary,
stays in the room –
eventually approaches,
almost allows a pat.

'He's a good man,'
my god-daughter says.
Holding hands, they smile 
into each other's eyes.


Also linked to Flash 55 (without the 'Plus') at 'imaginary garden with real toads'


Sunday, August 7, 2016

Filling the Space

A small space in the day, 
a small space in my town,
for a Cappuccino mug
and Spanakopita slice.
As soon as I sit down –
outdoor table, with a view
of big fluffy clouds like ice-creams
and gently wavering trees –
the bikers roar past, black and shining,
helmeted like Darth Vader.



Also for the current Flash-55 Plus! at 'imaginary garden with real toads' – 55 words plus the idea of 'lacuna': a cavity or space. (I've interpreted that as time out, rather than the real meaning of something missing.)

Saturday, August 6, 2016

I Give You This Moment

A quiet morning after rain.
The door open to the mild air.
Over the fence, the warbling
of a lone magpie, briefly, twice,
flute-like melody conjuring
his unseen form. Meanwhile
the orange trumpet creepers
suspend themselves down palings 
like bells, or clusters of fruit.





Note: Natalie Goldberg, author of wonderful books for writers, exhorts her readers: "Give me this moment!' meaning, sit down and write whatever's in front of you, whatever's going on right now. So of course I thought of her when I did so on this occasion, and that gave me my title.

#awakeaugust day 6/2

A Candle for Her Passing

I chose a new white taper, 
very slim, in a clear glass holder.
I set it near my pictures of Andrew
and the fairy mountain, the owl statue
and the stones from magical places.
I said the prayer for the dead, aloud,
as I lit the wick. For the rest of the day
it burned all the way down, until gone.


Friday, August 5, 2016

Recurring Irony

A new flower in my garden – 
first of the season, 
as all that rain 
turns to fresh sunshine.

My friend who died two days ago
is still gone. Another loss 
for heavy August.

Why do they always leave 
just as Spring begins?




















#awkeaugust day 5/2.

Street Scene

After days of heavy rain
this morning the sun returns.
A small boy rides his tricycle
around the end of the cul-de-sac,
watched by his young father.
He jumps it up over the gutter
like a bucking bronco. 
















#awakeaugust day 5.

Thursday, August 4, 2016

Viewing

I watch on DVD
Shakespeare's Henry V
('a very masculine play,'
notes the star, afterwards)
and comparing in my mind
to the nightly news on TV,
I wonder at men, who like to fight
testosterone-fuelled wars
for which they always find 
great-sounding, righteous reasons.


#awakeaugust day 4/2.

A Quiet Night In

With the aftermath of rain
dribbling outside, down gutters
and off the edges of leaves,
inside is hushed 
in golden lamplight.
My cat's neat black paw 
stretches across the top blanket, 
holding our safety in place.



















Wednesday, August 3, 2016

The Passage of Time

She used to be the cleverest,
when we were students together.
Meeting her now in age, I weep
to see her lost, vacant gaze.


#Awake August day 3 

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Nightly Ritual

At bedtime her black fur
against the room's darkness
gives her a sinister shape
as she sits awhile upright, 
ears cocked, Guardian Cat,
before deciding it's safe
for both of us to sleep,
and curling close.














Written for #Awake August

Monday, August 1, 2016

Nearly

After six and a half months with me,
my shy and wary cat almost licks my finger. 
I scratch gently behind her ear. This time 
she turns her head, sniffs my knuckle, 
pokes out the tip of her tiny tongue ...
then pauses, draws back, and pretends sleep.



















Written for #Awake August 2016