Lovely Weather for Ducks

Nothing but rain outside.

It will be like this for days

the house surrounded by darkness

(the windows look like night)

and afterwards

hordes of new mosquitos.

I cancel lunch with friends,

think I might dust the bedroom

(it looks so beautiful clean)

and find the DVD my son recently sent:

Othello, in 1990,
Ian McKellen playing Iago. 

This Time

This time

she did not run away and hide

when I tried to dab calendula cream

on the allergy spot behind her ear.

This time

she hunched on the couch beside me

and submitted,

albeit with a disgruntled face.

This time

after I was done

she got down off the couch,

licked her paw, and deliberately washed it all off.

Autumn Begins with Days of Rain

On the first dry evening

I open the door to the yard

and see in spite of the dark

the vine, as if suddenly, 

fresh green, thick with leaf.

Opening the front door

next morning, still rainless,

I confront mist: startlingly white,

wiping out hills and mountains

above the other side of the street.

TV Shows About High School KIds

Joyfully discovering Veronica Mars,

and remembering beloved Buffy, I wonder –

is it that I’m permanently adolescent,

or am I trying to recast myself, even now,
as the brave teenager I never was?

Written for Writing Ourselves Alive, week 2: Honesty

Going to Ground

I told a truth about myself

I never told before.

It was big.

People were kind. And even I

could see myself with distance,
lending compassion.

But it wore me out.

I haven’t been able, since,
to tell anyone anything.

Written for Writing Ourselves Alive, week 2: Honesty

After the Fierce Summer

After the fierce summer 

(and my arthritis flare-up)

my garden is dead –

except, of course, for the weeds.

My cat with the white whiskers

finds herself a shady spot

under drooping ferns

and a statue's impassive gaze.

Written for Writing Ourselves Alive, week 2: Honesty

Surprise

a silent thunk!

some part of my soul
re-enters my body

Written for Writing Ourselves Alive, week 2: Honesty

Investigating My Space

My blue bedspread is one kind of cotton,

the sheet another. The smooth sheet

slides over my skin in this hot weather,

or rests cool upon it when I lie flat.

The bedspread is thick and almost rough,

almost a little furry – though it's not, 

but it has texture. It has little white flowers

with stylised stems and leaves, in rows.

It came from India. My cat's white whiskers 

shine against black fur. She rests her chin
on the Indian cotton throw, stays all night.

Written for Writing Ourselves Alive, week 1: Curiosity

Last Night in Bangalow

Purple trees in early evening 

in tiny, pretty Bangalow,

and my friends conducting me

to an illustrated talk on Venice,

beloved Venice, in the paintings

of Canaletto, who loved it too.

‘What is the name of these trees?’ I asked.

‘Teeboocheena,’ my friends replied

and spelt it: Tibouchina. I Googled later.

Pronounced Tibbookyna (y as in ‘try’).

Beautiful whatever the name. Like Venice,

that dream, and the paintings of Canaletto.

(The lecturer postulated that Venice has long been more dream or myth than city – not evolving, nothing replaced, but continually preserved and restored.)

Written for Writing Ourselves Alive, week 1: Curiosity