Around Wollumbin

[Two for the price of one; see note.]

I live on an ancient shield volcano 

deemed extinct, honeycombed 

by the Northern Rivers. 

In its old basement

during explosive phases,

or when magma moved 

through central vents,

shales and sandstones 

were ripped away –

to be preserved as xenoliths, 

inside the cooling igneous matrix. 

                            ***

The rising hot basaltic magma 

absorbed, by assimilation, 

pieces of continental crust:

xenocrysts (mainly feldspar). 

We find feldspar bits

along roads, in creeks ...

Once I drew a crystal being

with wild orange hair

who came to me asking.

He said his name was Feldspar.

Wollumbin, aka Mt Warning (public domain).

The channelled drawing mentioned in the poem 

© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 1998:

Written for dVerse Quadrille 255: 44 words excluding title and including the word xenolith. A xenolith is a fragment of foreign rock trapped inside a larger, igneous rock.  I couldn't resist writing a second quadrille, as second stanza, to include the word xenocryst, an individual foreign crystal similarly trapped. 

It's partly a found poem, in that many of the words and phrases are used verbatim from a Google search about this area.  These geological terms turned out to be so musical, I couldn't resist including them!

Growing Apart

Why is it

one can absorb the changes;

one cannot? 

One and one make two –

only sometimes. 

At others, one and one

make one and 

one other.

Ideally

when love is full,

one and one make one –

becoming one, being

united 

whole.

(Which is perhaps illusion

or, only sometimes. But still.)

A long friendship

is a kind of marriage –

without the complications

of sex. Without

the financial

entanglement.

Easier in some ways,

more comfortable.

But lives go on, and happen

at times on different tracks.

They can lead

further and further away.

Not a loop rejoining, but

other directions, other

scenery / people /

contrivances for living.

The funny thing is,

you don’t notice. There is

still communication. 

(Communication is stilled

but you don’t notice.)

Until they say something

and you respond 

and they take offence.

And when you look at it

you can quite see why they do,

how it, carelessly, sounded –

only, once, the way it was meant

would have been clear, accepted,

understood, needing no 

explanation. No apology. Not 

between these two.

But it has come to this.

We no longer run

so deep – no longer joined. 

Instances proliferate.

Explanations, apologies:

wasteful. I detach 

quietly. Respond politely.

From the outside.

Written for Poets and Storytellers United at Friday Writings #243, where we are invited to write something which includes numbers.

Perspective

… might be the same as perspicacity, allowing one to see

in different directions … indifferent directions, not mattering

if back or forwards, a long way away or right up close to the eye.

I am writing on computer. My hand doesn’t flow. But the words 

flow, so in that way the writing is flowing. It goes where my mind 

wanders. A smattering of images, of small recognitions.

Behind my eyes, my little black cat comes walking. (I only

closed them a moment, drifting off.) Up across my lap where

I sit at my desk, as if floating smoothly from the floor ... further.

In life she would jump on the couch, traverse the surfaces

of TV table (in front of the screen, ignoring it), then low cupboard

onto coffee table, along my desk behind laptop and printer –

reaching at last the chest of drawers where she stood to gaze 

through the glass of the sliding door's big window, thence at last 

into her cosy cat bed high on top of her tall scratching post.

What did she see when she stared out into the yard and up

over the slats of the fence? Nothing I could ever discern; but cats, 

Google tells me, have a different, more inclusive kind of vision.

She never before walked across my lap as if it was a thoroughfare,

head down, focused forward. My lap and arms were refuges,

places to stay and nestle in and purr; her perspective filled, right here.

Now, does this lone visitation, already two weeks and a half since she 

left the physical world, carry the simple message of moving on? If I seek 

to keep her close, is my perspective distorted? In that time she has been 

far, she’s been utterly gone – unlike all my other cats

who insistently, happily haunted for days, weeks, even months

after their bodies had left. (She was never like any other cats.) 

It’s a good telescope I have, I decide. At any moment I can choose 

to turn its intended direction, bringing her image up close, filling my view. 

Or let it rest as the maker designed, seeing her small form recede …

She was a wise little thing, grounded in reality and now: what was so 

in any moment. Sometimes she treated me as her mother; sometimes 

her kitten who needed to be taught. She had enormous stores of calm.

Sharing with Poets and Storytellers United, for Friday Writings #242: Perspective. It's attempting to be a zuihitsu, a form I'm recently exploring somewhat uncertainly.

Protest

These days (elderly) 

I no longer march.

Instead I email politicians.

They reply, promptly and 

non-comittally.

I post things on facebook too –

things I read and agree with.

They seldom get any response

though my friends are like-minded.

Has everyone finally

succumbed to despair?

Written for dVerse Quadrille #354: I Protest. 

Void

 

‘She’s not cold tonight,’

I think suddenly –

passing the heater where 

I would leave a blanket for her

to lie on, these winter nights.

I can’t stop myself 

from that quick glance  

checking her kitty litter

every time I pass the laundry – 

where there is no kitty litter now.

Her soft rugs

from all over the house

have been taken down 

from her perches and nests,

the hair brushed off, and washed.

I remove the covers

protecting my lounge suite 

from enthusiastic scratches.

It does look nice,

now that we can see it.

I clean and put away 

her food and water dishes,

gather left-over food supplies

to give to the vet for others …

it’s best to keep busy.

My little cat, Poppi, died of a sudden seizure, in the vet's arms, on Thursday morning – two days ago. Apparently a  brain tumour, not uncommon at her age (15) and nothing that anyone could have done. This photo , showing the covered couch, taken in April this year (2026).

Sharing with Friday Writings #241: Change at Poets and Storytellers United.

Hereditary

She thought it would be the eldest grandchild inheriting her magic. That bright, beautiful girl of quick mind. But no, that one is consumed by dance, already giving her time, her passion, her life to her art. And shining from her stages, both gymnast and sylph, lifting eyes and hearts. 

the moment

caught on camera –

a white star

sails through the sky

impossibly stilled

Nor is it the middle child, the quicksilver boy. Though he loves to search through the earth (or her treasure-trove cupboards!) for sparkling stones; though he already tends plants in his own garden. Life is complex for him: he’s still finding his way. To be a man – is that to excel at sport (he does)? Is it to joke or be harsh when he wants to cry? Where will he find a different model? Does he even suspect there may be one? He is not ready to explore magic, and may never be.

triumph –

from the sidelines 

the father

once a winner too

cheers from his wheelchair

No, it turns out to be the youngest. We should have known from the start. When she came in, it was hard for her to fully arrive – still so connected to the world beyond, which we see (because we can’t see) as death and darkness. Finally she settled, after surgery. She has always been gentle; sometimes afraid of things we deem ordinary – but full of light, of love, of wonder. She did not have an ordinary capacity to hold things; quickly learned her own way; then surgery again to make her appear more normal, more human, more like all the rest. She adapted well (she’s quick and willing) and kept her fae quality too. In conversations with her grandmother, she reveals that she sees things beyond the veil, even though she is now anchored safely here. They are sweet and interesting things, which will not harm but enhance her. 

the grandmother

holds this one close  

yet loose 

enough to let her grow 

and be well nourished

Note: In case you wonder, this grandmother is not me.