In my friend’s garden
there are always flowers
every time of year,
and birds at the feeding box
her husband built.
The years go on;
we are all getting older.
Looking out across her lawn
over the descending hill,
I’m grateful to still visit.
A Quadrille for dVerse, 44 words (minus title) which must include some form of ‘flower’: Quadrille #241.
(Photos all taken in Lancia and Ern's garden; just a few of the many over the years.)
I don’t understand Groundhog Day, not being American. I thought, because of the movie, it meant the same things happening over and over: one day endlessly repeated. But Frank Tassone, using it as a poetry prompt at dVerse, tells us it’s the day when the behaviour of a groundhog is used to forecast either coming Spring or a return to Winter.
Puzzling. Spring always arrives, doesn't it, sooner later?
But then he connects it to the Christian holiday, Candlemass, which he tells us is about anticipating when to plant seeds. Aha! so the ‘sooner or later’ of Spring’s arrival is the point.
I look up Candlemass for more detail. Instead, Google takes me straight to an account of the Pagan festival of Imbolc.
Ah yes, same date. Now I get it! (Sometimes one has to dive a little deeper.)
That, however, is not quite the end of the story. Not for me. Here in Australia we have just come out the other side of a heatwave – not the only one we’ll get this Summer, I fully expect. Here, we are six months away from Imbolc. We have been celebrating Lughnasadh (aka Lammas). Well, some of us have. For Pagans, it’s a time to be thankful for the bounty of nature and the gifts from agriculture.
If we were to have a Groundhog Day here, it couldn’t be now.
late summer –
we celebrate with bread
the good harvest
On hot days, it's evening
when I open both doors. Cool air
floats inside, soothing my skin.
On days of rain and thunder,
bedtime’s best: I snuggle
indoors, warm and safe.
On busy days, the best time
is after dinner. I shrug off
duties, responsibilities; relax.
On lazy, self-indulgent days,
restored, I come alive at night
to dream or plan … in the nurturing dark.
Written for Poets and Storytellers United in response to Friday Writings #211: Write about the time of day you like best, and why. I have written a number of times already about my preference for the night hours, so I thought I'd look at the question differently. However ...
I catch myself in a shop window
pushing my walker,
my bottom sticking out backwards
further than I think,
my crochet sun-hat pulled down
nearly to my eyes.
My pretty, floaty purple dress
doesn’t at all disguise
the weighty body inside. Who IS
this doppelgänger I fail to recognise?
A rueful smile. Ah well,
I guess this is being old.
A much younger woman
pushing a laden shopping trolley
diverts to the nature strip
to let me past.
We share a laugh
at how narrow the path.
‘You look lovely in that dress!’
she throws over her shoulder.
‘Thank you, my love,’ I call back
(she’s a stranger),
‘You’ve made my day!’
She has no idea how much.
I kept bursting into tears! It was our first visit to Bali – me, Bill, and our two little boys. It was 1974, the tourist boom just beginning. We visitors would collectively alter that Paradise beyond retrieval … but we didn’t know so then. It was still unchanged. A naked family, showering under a roadside run-off, waved unembarrassed as our taxi passed.
the setting sun
falling slowly into
a wide flat sea
‘Island of the Gods’ the tourist books called it. We agreed. Enraptured as I was, why was I constantly bursting into sudden tears?
We read the histories. Some postulated combined ancestry, Indian and Chinese. Later writers say those influences arose more from trade visitations. We could still find old Chinese coins, with holes in the middle, dropped in the street. I brought home three to use with my I Ching.
Suddenly Bill got it. ‘It’s the Indian in you!’
My maternal grandmother was mixed-race Anglo-Indian. (I have to add ‘mixed race.’ There are other definitions of the term, from the time of the Raj: one meaning completely English but living long in India, a second meaning completely Indian but thoroughly adopting British culture.)
He was right. It burst on me as revelation. It wasn’t the people but the artefacts. I was re-experiencing things I’d grown up with, lost along with my childhood. I was eating out of bowls I ate from in my grandparents’ home, I was surrounded by reminiscent ornaments, I was admiring familiar designs on cloth …
There were connections with Chinese artefacts too. My mother’s family had put in there on the long boat trip from India to Tasmania, and bought some pieces.
I’ll pass to descendants the carved Indian-silver containers and vases, the polished bamboo bowls with Chinese dragons painted around their outsides.
My Dutch-born husband wanted to visit Indonesia for the soul connection to an ancestor who had lived there and left diaries. I didn’t care. I hadn’t been out of Australia; I was happy to go anywhere. How odd that it was I who fell into connection with my Asian roots (who never got seventies Bali out of my blood for evermore). But …
I never returned
to the isle of the gods –
vanished
Written for Haibun Monday: Epiphany at dVerse.
SM
Rifle shots darken
day, mood, life force.
Killing Jews in Australia
doesn’t save Palestinians
suffering in Gaza. Just as
slaughtering people in Gaza
has not stopped terrorists.
What, then? Hibernate? Enter
the darkness? Escape
under that blanket, despair?
Or light our candles
for all?
Written for Quadrille #238 at dVerse: 44 words including ‘hibernate’.
People have been lighting candles for those killed in the recent Bondi Beach attack on civilians celebrating Hanukkah. Others are asking why we don't do that for the victims of the genocide in Gaza.
water sign
(Tarot Queen of Cups) –
am I calm lake
vast moody ocean
or deep river?
13/11/25
three-day birthday
feasting with this kind friend
and that, and those …
last night’s tea just a snack,
pyjama day today
14/11/25
‘eighty-six
going on seventy-two,’
says my doctor
and, ‘I'm glad you’ve still got
your brain. I see so many …’
14/11/25
gifts: flowers
from her garden
food she grew
one birthday candle
hours of easy talk
17/11/25
by the third day
I've already stopped
writing daily
in my new diary
(birthday gift kindly meant)
*
now I inscribe
my journal's blank pages
with new tanka –
poetry is my way
to fill my days, my life
20/11/25
dark moon
in the month and sign
of my birth –
not surprising I’m loath
to tidy my house
21/11/25