‘What’s an Australian poet
anyway?’ he scoffed. I almost answered: ‘You’re sitting
next to one.’ But I was only
his old aunty. I kept mum.
15/3/26
My peacock feathers will insist
on leaning too far sideways
out of the vase where I stood them –
to brush the feet of pictured Isis
and curl in a reverential fan
over the head of my statue of Thoth.
17/3/26
silently
my cat walks through
lamplight
4/3/26
news of the world –
rising fear churns in me
and spills over
8/3/26
this old photo –
the me you never knew
11/3/26
dear old cat
more and more
sleeps
12/3/26
days of rain
then too much heat – escape
lies indoors
12/3/26
Northern Rivers autumn –
the time of tiny geckos
13/3/26
online class cutting lino
in little fish shapes – why?
15/3/26
looking back
more often now than forward –
am I at last old?
18/3/26
late light
sky fades to white –
sharp-edged hills
28/3/26
so sudden –
this day long awaited
31/3/26
22. SOLSTICE
we witches
dance in circle –
the year turns
23. NEBULA
reading Just Kids …
contemplating coloured clouds
in outer space
24. ECLIPSE
eclipse –
along with the dark
silence
25. ZENITH
the sun
at its height, and I
sinking
26. AURORA
cold childhood nights –
woken to see those flashes
of eerie green
(I grew up in Launceston, Tasmania, where the
Aurora Australis was occasionally, though rarely,
visible, and my parents insisted I must view it.)
27. TIDE
a sunny day –
on the outgoing tide
my friend’s ashes
28. HORIZON
far over the sea
or drawn close by the mountains –
the same horizon?
*
(1)
always
further to travel –
frustration!
(2)
still
further to travel –
such a comfort!
(3)
again
further to travel –
inspiring!
(I don’t mean for readers to choose a
favourite of these. They are intended as a
sequence: contradictory perhaps, yet all valid.)
*
moonlight on water
bridging the horizon –
a beckoning path
