Rounding a corner ...

high across the road
pale wattle branches
laden with blooms,
light in the sudden tunnel
of large, dark eucalypts

Home

When a program set in my birthplace
comes on television —
cooking, architecture, politics —
I don’t say much
but I stop whatever I’m doing
and have a long, long look
at the background scenery.

7 Days Challenge, Day 7: Fall in love with the world

Rewards

Reading people’s minds in their poetry, 

seeing what they pay attention to,

I make new friends.

Writing with my attention on the world,

I return and read, and from outside

discover myself.

Actually the heading for Day 7 is, 'Join us and keep writing', along with an invitation to take a course called 'Fall in love with the world in 30 days', and to join the 'Writing Our Way Home' community — neither of which I am going to do. Not that I don't think they would be good things to do, but I have enough to keep up with already, both online and off. And I am already in love with the world; always have been.


Apart from that, the instruction for today is: Make sure you notice one thing today, too, and write it down. So this, above, is what I noticed at the end of this 7 days.


I will be engaging in the next 'River of stones' in January, with daily posts here ... and probably a few in the interim. :)

7 Days Challenge, Day 6: Peace through writing

Invasion

How ungainly it looks

the young monitor lizard

scrambling up our driveway

running away from my car

jointed legs akimbo.

But it’s fast. And I’m glad

it lives on this land, 

hiding most of the time —

its species has tenure

more ancient than mine.

I want to call it ‘he’

but I resist. The truth is

I don’t know. The truth

is that respect for life

refuses idle assumptions.

I do know it’s young

from the size. They can grow

three times as big. I hope

that this one will, continuing

to avoid cars and people.

(Hope I don’t need to spell out which is the invader here. May there be peace between us!)

7 Days Challenge, Day 5: Keep going

Warming Up

I’m in town in my sarong.

I see another too-old woman

in a floral sun dress,

short skirt and skinny straps.

As I stop to buy diet Coke,

a bike roars away from the shop.

Thin rider in black leans forward

low over the handle bars.

There’s that hint in the air

of anticipation.Thoughts

of beaches, parties ... 

my steps quicken.

7 Days Challenge, Day 4: Notice a person

Home Help

So straight-backed, hard-voiced.

It takes me weeks to hear

the kindness of her words,

to see the smile in her eyes.

7 Days Challenge, Day 3: Use all your senses

(or at least more of them than sight alone)


November in the Northern Rivers

The heat coats my skin like a very fine layer of oil. My cheeks and temples tingle. My hair thickens on my head, in a close cap. I like the feeling of warmth on my naked back, and the light in the long evenings lingering late. 

7 Days Challenge, Day 2: Look, write and look again

Cold chicken stir fry (supper)

The rice dry and crunchy

the vegetables moist, crisp.

A peanut taste ... inexplicable.

The spiciness it had at dinner, gone.


(Well, I didn't look, I tasted and felt.)

7 Days Challenge, Day 1: Go to the World

Observation


The thick stems of the jade bush are dark, banded and mottled, like reptile skin.