Dreaming of Andrew

Dreaming of Andrew

There he, is my dear husband, not dead after all. How

could he have been here all this time and I didn’t know?

Still white-haired, he’s walking freely. His beautiful face,

when he sees me coming towards him, fills with a glow.

He’s in a little stone house by the beach. I’ve not seen

this place before, but he has been living here it seems,

cared for by an old friend of ours who, it turns out, owns

this cottage. (No need to explain things further in dreams.)

We are so happy! Together again, what rapture!

… Even after I wake up, I can still recapture

that joy, so strong in the dream that it stays with me now –

a sure foundation which nothing will ever fracture.


A Rubaiyat, for Poetry Forms – The Rubaiyat at dVerse. I learn online that 'Rubaiyat' refers to both the ancient Persian poetic form and to its English variants. Reading that the original Persian had 13 syllables per line and no set metre, I thought I'd try that. The rhyme scheme is one of several traditional variations. I found the 13-syllable line unexpectedly hard to manage and the results rather prosey. However, even Fitzgerald's translation of Omar is more philosophical than imagistic a lot of the time, so I'll let it be.

Yes, the dream and its aftermath did happen, quite recently. I realise with hindsight that the dream cottage was at a beach which was the scene of the joyful reunion of a long-parted couple in a movie I saw not long ago; and the friend who owned the cottage in my dream is someone who did sometimes come and spend time with Andrew in his final months, when I was his carer, so that I could go out for a walk.

Only Pain

Only Pain

'It's only pain,'

she says, appearing

to shrug,

almost hiding

her rigid back,

her drawn white face,

tight mouth.

The truth is, 

she is afraid

of what is worse

than this.

She fears 

it comes soon:

her death.

And that dying

will lacerate her

with pain even more

shriekingly extreme.

She's practising

how to hold

upright back, calm face

against collapse,

against the screams

she won't allow

being heard.

(A fictional character, compounded of various people observed over the years.)

Sharing this poem at Poets United's Poetry Pantry #435

Love, Eventually

Love, Eventually
















My black cat

with white whiskers

stares silently

eyes fixed

on my face:

the gaze of love

and trust.

Then she blinks

slowly, almost drowsily,

snuggling against my leg,

purring long.

A slight

and dainty cat,

she's ten.

When she came,

she was eight;

she stayed aloof, hiding

behind curtains,

claws ready....

One year before

purring; two to miaow.

But now –

we anchor and

orbit each other; 
true minds.

This poem is in a new form invented by a friend who wishes to remain private. She calls the form 'arch', in which the 4th stanza is – as she says – 'much like the keystone is for an arch, holding both sides together'. I'll be sharing this poem via Poets United's Poetry Pantry #434 in the New Year.

Details:

The poem is 7 stanzas long, with 69 words. Stanzas break down as follows:

1st stanza: 3 words/3 words/2 words

2nd stanza: 2 words/3 words/4 words/2 words

3rd stanza: 3 words/3 words/4 words/2 words

4th stanza: 2 words/3 words/2 words

5th stanza: 3 words/3 words/4 words/2 words

6th stanza: 2 words/3 words/4 words/2 words

7th stanza:: 3 words/3 words/2 words

A Lament for the ‘Tasmanian Tiger’

A Lament for the Tasmanian Tiger

Tiger, tiger, you didn’t burn bright

in the Launceston Museum when I was a child.

You looked pathetic: your pelt moth-eaten,

your colour dull, head down as if dejected.

You were stuffed and stiff, and you looked it,

although you were supposed to seem

alive and wild. Even my naive young eyes

could tell there was no spark left in you.

You were all gone even then, quite gone

so I was told, the whole lot of you –

three years before I was born. I almost 

didn’t just miss you being alive and wild.

I think, though, I'd not have encountered you

even then. You were a shy creature, nocturnal,

secretive, hiding in the bush, quick and slinky

to slide out of sight: a ghost, a shadow.

There were whispers. You weren’t extinct.

You’d been seen. On the mainland too, 

even recently, right near where I live now. 

The locals nod, and keep their counsel.

                          ************

I thought I saw you once, when I was still

a child back in Tassie – a flicker of movement

and a different colour, at the edge of a field,

fading back into the bush. So swift! Imagined?

You were bright then: not fire but light, 

stretched out, loping efficiently, a glimpse 

caught through deepening dusk; beautiful … 

vanishing into the wilderness as night began.

Written for Fireblossom Friday: Lament for the Thylacine at 'imaginary garden with real toads. The thylacine was widely known as the Tasmanian Tiger, though it is not related to tigers. It was a unique animal, a carnivorous marsupial.
Image: CC BY 2.O Wikimedia Commons

Sometimes Glad They Didn't Live

Sometimes Glad They Didn't Live

There was a time, after my second husband died –

to whom I was not married any more by then,

but to someone else, but still I hadn't wanted him dead

and it was a huge shock, and then to be dealing with

our sons' grief, their storms of sobbing ...

there was that time when Holland lost to Argentina

in the FIFA World Cup, after getting so far,

and I was glad he was dead, to miss that 

huge disappointment that it would have been for him

(Dutch till he was 15)....   Is that weird? Anyway I was.

And I caught myself feeling glad just now

that my dear third husband is not still alive to learn

that one of his favourite Aussie actors – the one we saw

walking along St Kilda Road after we'd been to the Art Gallery,

that last time we visited Melbourne together 

(we had sat to rest on the low concrete ledge

dividing pavement from Arts Centre precincts

near the bridge above South Bank, and there he was

coming towards us from the theatre complex. Yes, it was 

him! In the end, Andrew just called out, 'Good on you, mate!'

The tall man gave him a quick thumbs up,

a nod and a lopsided grin, as he strode past

heading for Flinders Street Station, or the tram stop, or

the Swanston Street shops ... wherever great people go

when they're being ordinary and just like the rest of us.) 

I'm glad, I say, that Andrew never heard the tales

of an Aussie icon revealed as predator. At first 

we didn't believe the one young woman; and other actors 

said they knew nothing of it – but now it begins to look true. 

If Andrew has to be dead, I'm glad he's spared this sad disillusion.


Sharing with the last Tuesday Platform for 2018 at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Of Roots, Cut Grass ...

Of Roots, Cut Grass ...

On a high plain in Kashmir

surrounded by mountains,

in charge of a flock,

he wanders them here and there

across this changing plateau.

The days are hot, 

the nights are cold.

Moving through the old realms,

is one bell enough?

Who marches at the head?

Evening. Men 

who had promised 

craftsmanship 

sat, talked, refilled glasses,

looked out the window. 

He never speaks. 

The animals twitch with energy,

smell of death,

confront, adapt,

flow where they will.

Erasure poem, excerpted and rearranged from two short pieces of fiction: Hazel’s Haircut by Rob Swannock Fulton and Some Roots of Grass, author unknown.

Shared at Poets United's PoetryPantry #433