Bushfire Season

Bushfire Season

Smoke fills all horizons

while my geraniums still bloom.

Smoke blooms, fills

all my still geraniums.

My still horizons fill

with geraniums, all smoke.

My geraniums fill (still)

smoke-bloom horizons.

Still smoke blooms;

geraniums fill my horizons.

Still my smoke horizons

fill geraniums, bloom.

Horizons fill with still blooms: 

smoke geraniums.

All my geraniums bloom smoke,

while horizons still.

Written for Weekend Mini Challenge: The Uncertainty of the Poet at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

(This is very much what my November has been like, here on the east coast of Australia!) 

I think about you: American sentences

I think about you: American sentences

(Observations on the foibles of human behaviour – more senryu than haiku-like – these are meant to be read separately, not as a sequence.)

My past relationships taught me love has many forms and many ways.

How difficult and hard to reach she has become since her bereavement.

That girl with the sweet voice is always using it to stir up trouble.

They contest the will, wanting to hang on to more of their dead father.

It’s not that I’m still grief-struck – just that I think about you all the time.

For Fran: 2.

The first part of this two-poem sequence was posted a few days ago, under the post title 'An old story'.

FOR FRAN

2. Another epitaph

On neat quiet afternoons of leaves

I visit clouds and pastures of the mind

leafing through notes of your faces

— which were always windy

exchange perhaps yours for mine

almost find you there

(sudden surge of hibiscus)

… but then you’re gone

glimpses of cards in a ruffled pack   rippling too fast

quick fingering   piano   after the keys have been touched

— flashes of shadows …

you are the past

frayed petals blowing down-mind:

my black garden where you do not bloom

flower-of-an-hour

my sister my ghost

Note: 'flower-of-an-hour': a type of hibiscus.
(Photo by 'American 187' licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0)

from Universe Cat, Pariah Press (Melb.) 1985
and Secret Leopard, Alyscamps Press (Paris) 2005.

First published Poets Choice 1979 (The Last Poets Choice)


To be shared with Poets United's Pantry of Poetry and Prose #6

Nightly

Nightly

I long for sleep

or tell myself I do,

yet keep deferring

bed-time.

I still sleep 

in the big bed

I shared with you,

when you were alive.

I have the bed

all to myself now,

can stretch out as I like;

I don’t.

When I retire 

late, alone, wakeful,

the true longing

is not for sleep.

Written for Poets United's Midweek Motif ~ Longing

Each verse is a separate 'American sentence' – just because I wanted to give it some structure. This means that each could also stand alone, senryu-like.

Secret Blue

Secret Blue

They think I love purple best.

They see me tenderly nurture

my small pot of hearts-ease,

surround myself with amethyst,

wear clothes in all shades

from soft lavender to rich magenta –

but no, my longest, deepest love

is for blue – deep blue,

the colour of ocean

(the Pacific, that jewel

adorning these shores)

or the unequivocal, singing blue 

of a sunlit sky in high midsummer,

uninterrupted vista ...

the blue of cornflowers 

and sky-high mountains,

a love I shared with my Dad

when I was very young, before

I was disillusioned, learning him

selfish and weak ... but

the love of blue remains

(and of cornflowers and mountains).

Blue is the colour 

of my true loves' eyes –

two of my husbands,

three of my lovers:

(divided differently) three 

the pure, soft blue

of the sky in Spring; 

two the blue of the sea

lit with bright turquoise,

or the centre of a flame.

The darkest blue is the sapphire

in the ring you gave me –

dear third husband

and last lover –

to declare your love 

and mark our marriage.

The gold band is now so thin ...

and you gone seven years into death ...

I finally took it off. 

But I see it still without even looking:

a depth of blue so enduring 

it might be mistaken for black –

and far within, when I gaze,

that flash of hidden, constant light.

Written for Thotpurge's Poetry Tuesday #4 – Blue

And shared in Writers’ Pantry #4 at Poets and Storytellers United.

The Calling

The Calling

The moon high in my window 

floated, gazing, all the long nights,

claiming me: whispering, singing –

beginning in my far childhood

and never ending, not yet.

I knew and did not resist.

‘You,’ I said in my silent thought,

‘are my lover, my mother,

my teacher, my secret God.’

I chose with my whole heart.

Was chosen and chose.

Was claimed and laid claim.

It was written; witnessed by stars

and by the dark space of night itself.

Written in blood, carved deep.

It was always written.

The rest I was free to invent.

Life, other loves, children,

even other work, other

delights of the soul.

But here in the deep night

which is home, 

only this truth remains,

all else extraneous 

as the moon and I commune.

Written for Thotpurge's Poetry Tuesday #3 – Borrowed, where we are invited to 'borrow some magic' from a poem that inspires us. I've always loved Dylan Thomas's 'In my craft or sullen art'.

Also linking to Poets United's Pantry of Poetry and Prose #8. I'll be travelling when the Pantry goes live, with limited internet access for a couple of days, so I may be a trifle tardy reading and commenting on other's writings. I'll catch up soon!