Solace
Pip Sheehan Lowther (c) 2012
Please acknowledge writer if any poems used.
introduction
Always sensing within me a spiritual compass
indicating God acting kindly in unkind times,
I’ve written a lot of poems over the years
with this orientation in their own small truths.
Solace is a particular collection to say how
grateful I am for these stories that help me
make my way hopefully towards tomorrow,
and of offering them as solace to the reader.
acknowledgements
Colourheat, Undercurrent Press 1991; POW, Poets Union 1994; Quadrant, Aust. 1998; Indigo Thistles, PeakPress 2000; Takahe New Zealand Dec 2001; Micropress 2002; Poetry New Zealand, 2003; song of the belly button man, Artsenta 2004; FeetFirst, 3 Wanaka Poets 2004; Monsoon, Tropic Writers Qld 2009; Sap Chapbook, Far Nth Qld, 2009; Sapphire Live, Cairns 2009
contents
1...ember
2...weekend on green mountain
3...purple prints
4...sometimes
5...rocks (for R.J.D.)
6...watching, metronomes the fury
7...a fool (notwithoutcause)
8...the women whose men
9...refuge
10...colourheat
11...hughie’s café
12...understanding an island
13...murri meal
14...mungana archways
15...creek peace (mullumbimby)
16...the gift of a moon
17...the mother
18...upstream scars
19...for wei ding shing (chinese protestor)
20...buttons and boots
21...about three sisters and one third wife
22...for stan (and all those who make a stand)
23...one more gone
24...where we are again, home
25...milestone
26...in the space
27...long strong song
28...water angels
29...god’s grammar
30...belonging (daintree)
31...elemental
32...what to say at a time of natural disaster?
33...easter hangi
34...call
35...still steady strong
36...cicadas (singapore art museum)
37...home is the arms around me
38...borrowing the tennis rackets
39...connection
40...dressing table fables
41...girl playing in the rain
42...the willow tree
43...granted
44...quicksand
THE POEMS
1...EMBER
we are hungry for the magic of moment
we are hungry for fire from heaven
we are hungry for hope’s fulfilments
we are hungry for earth’s movement beneath us
let desire flame upwards within us
let passion tide far & wide our shores
let seeds green us & grow us
let light clean us unshadowing
so each to the other for giving
grace’s quiet silent huge moving for living
light’s wide open vowels in our mouths
hearts beating & beating & beating
store an ember in your heart
a word a song a poem
store an ember in your heart
a glance a touch a mountaintop
store an ember in your heart
to fan into flame when the cold winds blow
of sadness & sickness & sorrow & pain
when friends aren’t there & it’s war again
2... WEEKEND ON GREEN MOUNTAIN
turning left at Canungra
the drought-wounded road wound up
along the flanks of hills
rib-lined as the skinny horses
until the rainforested surrounds
of O’Reilly’s mountain resort
green us raw-thirsty
from the deserts of the years
we walk&talk walk&talk
sharing the awe of horizons
mountained distant as tomorrow
tremulous possible as hope
and the ferns the moss’d rocks
thick guarding trunks, birds
noting the bush with colour/sound
the brush of conversation painting
into thwarted hearts healing
a compass-swing of trust re-aligning
the fractures of family psyche
that had separated sister from sister
until turning right at Canungra
returning from waterfall and rest
to husbands children the world & work
memory knots string in the pearls
light in the hand’s play saying
like the gentleman at dinner (as if our dad)
let the children feel mud between their toes
dew on their cheeks, & always face the morning sun
3...PURPLE PRINTS
shells layer purple prints
not on soft sand
the song of salt water
whispering from their ears
muted notes of fearful years
but now embedded on textile
an exile of exoskeletons
the way you look at me
and see only what’s imprinted
the fossils accreted
by genes or chance…
“but the colours aren’t right
and should be changed”
before becoming
a cushion-cover
or a wall-hanging,
the way I have to
re-arrange my mothering
and my work-life to fit in
with the décor.
4...SOMETIMES
the midday sun’s heat power
chews the day’s chores
up into a wad hurling
down the sand into the sea
the waves wand around us
unknotting massaging skin-kissing
and romping with the children’s father
where have the years gone
by with the currents
of a thousand days’ oceans
and here once again there is
only now the sun your eyes
the waves our bodies
a universe supanoving
in slow exquisiteness
of saltwater
5...ROCKS (for R.J.D., my dad)
I am glad you are not here
to see the planet’s humiliation -
you who loved the feel of its skin,
who knew its every fold and nuance,
reading it for its stories.
(Your best obituary at fifty-one
was for your scientist’s contribution
from the hunter valley
coal community.)
You whose childhood
was saturated in the silent Word,
a salvation army heritage traded at 18
for the seduction of darwinism
(a mistress as hard as any taskmaster)
and then later, a catholic family.
Torn from life’s slow book
by death’s relentless demand,
we remember you…
the ink of children
now dry upon the pages
of the past ten years.
The pen was always
stronger than the sword,
and though teaching us thought
was tiresome,
it has given us our dreams.
6...WATCHING, METRONOMES THE FURY
we should have known
it would be so hard
the fairy tales were full
of demons giants and gore
but...
there’s the anger again
the fire eats, and...
(make it healthy
make me strong
make the scars a bridge
to you was it me
was it you too)
a greater one than us
stands behind
the ticking of the clock
Who, watching, metronomes
the fury of the heart
7...A FOOL (notwithoutcause)
Jesus is a man is a man
is a man is God
he is not the catholic church
the jehovah witnesses
the spanish inquisition
or the irish potato famine
nor is he new age
essene buddhist or hindhi
where you and I
meet with eternity
he is love’s truth
oystered by time
and I (simply) someone
who loves pearls,
a fool (notwithoutcause)
8...THE WOMEN WHOSE MEN
I wonder about the women
the chores
the children
the fears
the loneliness
in the quiet of the night I pray
for the women
whose men have been or are in
concentration camps
battle zones
politics
corner pubs
late night meetings
hospital beds
other women’s beds
the grave
in whose hearts
both the fight
and the surrender
are part of the victory
and most of the defeat.
9...REFUGE
I give you my life
said the Lord to his servant,
I call you my friend.
the road is lonely,
the needles plunge deep
into thickened veins
may I bathe your wounds,
let this refuge change you
weary traveller
the sleep, the sweet sleep
of home, the enfolding sheets
balm to bleeding nightmares
even lentil soup tastes good
to an empty belly’s gnaw,
gently close the door
love’s serving power
the signature of Jesus,
turned us inside out:
“I give you my life
said the one to an-other,
I call you my friend.”
10...COLOURHEAT
white-heat worship-song,
musicmakers surging long
into the night’s Light
angels and demons,
the legends pour into life
their very reality
where unseen is seen,
the substantial is smoky
the veil is torn down
“A One with snow-hair…
and eyes as blazing fire…
water-rushing Voice…
holding seven stars…
face sun-shiningly brilliant…
the First and the Last…
emerald rainbow…
lightning and peals of thunder…
wings and eyes and wheels…”
stars and stars and stars,
whispering their colourheat
into the heart’s peace
11...HUGHIE’S CAFÉ
A philippino lady serves us
& somewhere in between
cornjacks & caramel milkshakes
she counts her story out
with the change
after five miscarriages
she is “granny” of sorts
to a few kiddies
not old enough to cross
the road by themselves
but left alone in bed at night
to nightmare away the hours
while mums head out “town”
leave them with me,
she scolds the mothers,
thick middle-aged warmth
haloed by uncommon love,
I’ll feed them vegies,
I’ll put them to bed…
but won’t I report you
if you leave them alone
you understand don’t you dare
leave them to night’s terrors,
and here you can hear the fear
of her own loneliness.
God be with you special woman.
12...UNDERSTANDING AN ISLAND
I watch my daughter
almost five
negotiate snorkels goggles
and coral reefs
with far less clumsiness
far more fun than I.
Let me sing of security
it is a powerful thing.
I watch my son
almost three
understanding an island
relating coral to water
fish to reefs
currents to open oceans.
Let me sing of confidence
it is a powerful thing.
13...MURRI MEAL
dig a deep hole
in the sand
lay in your fire
stones on top
wrap in large leaves
vegies lamb chicken beef
hold by coop wire
and cover all in again
till cooked and then
the smoked offerings
are shared with us
a full-blooded murri woman
and her man a maori,
indigeosness worn like
broken badges, but how
do you see us? two noisy
toddlers and a pretty wonky
camp really…
it is true communion,
Christ had cooked fish
and ate with his friends
after his death...
they had doubted him,
and his wish to include them
in his resurrection.
this simple deliciousness,
this simple eating together
a simple true peace
under a purple sky
on a flat earth
14...MUNGANA ARCHWAYS
(Far North Queensland)
a man could come here
to die and die proudly
grey-rugged limestone massives
arching the dry-country soul
leaving behind time’s mastery
for the great Maker’s never-never
15...CREEK PEACE
(Mullumbimby)
Creek flowing gently
gently slowly flowing
with fishes freely fooling
and reflections lighting
low lying branches
with myriad-moving mood.
...
Let my soul’s face
see in you a place
a sanctuary a decision
to go quietly quietly
between the spirit’s banks
knowing love’s obedience.
16...THE GIFT OF A MOON
my mum is here,
a wonderful month
of jam-making, relish-bottling,
café & art shop browsing,
sharing hugs, housework
and whole days of taletelling,
which sibling did what when!
she finds a recipe in her handbag
next to the holy cards and her rosary
of nana smith’s tomato relish
and we turn pounds of mark’s
tomatoes into nana’s relish,
the pungent vinegar
hot & strong in our noses
our giggles and girlishness
last long hours into the night
with amy on the edges
regaling us with her not-quite-
teenage antics at the local
paradise cinema theatre
so here we are in Wanaka,
all of us, nana (in spirit
and in relish), grandma,
mum and daughter,
women by the gift
of the moon
17...THE MOTHER
she looked tired
no longer elastic
the stretch just
overstrung
too many times
but now the face is smiles
laughter running up and down
the river-system of wrinkles
where life’s force beaches
on the body’s shore
and the weather-sculpture
is beauty’s measure
18...UPSTREAM SCARS
from the coagulation of our hopes
are healed our sad mauled histories
the body’s song a tug of pulse & will
hauling upstream the deeper mysteries
what can one person standing in front of a tank do
what can one mountaineer achieve
what difference does one flower in a desert make
can one cop stop a heavy drug cartel
can one man’s death be a door into eternity
can one town recycling make the planet cleaner
does one jew walking out of a camp stop the wailing
does one black’s hanging prove his brother’s truth
does one dreaming the songline make any difference
19...FOR WEI DING SHING
(Chinese protester)
waterfall falling
always ever still
wei ding shing:
you reach me here
hope paths itself
where the heart
keeps walking:
your message is
the sky be blue
the wind fresh
a caress tender:
I pray for you
20...BUTTONS AND BOOTS
in the rusty arnott’s biscuit tin
an array of hundreds of buttons
would entertain my sister and I
for hours and hours
the luminescent pearl ones
and the rough-edged shell ones
were most likely to sit in my hand
longer than the others
years later we would flick through
my mother’s textile design folio
with such oohs and aahs to satisfy
the many-baby’d woman looking on
we had no feel of our mother’s style
growing up, but remember (with
a certain amount of sibling hilarity)
our matching fluorescent get-ups
trish’s green shoes and handbag
to go with the shift and wonderful
orange accessories memory-proud
even now nearly forty years later
it’s a long way for the older woman
to have travelled, from hand-sewing
her own serge-pleated uniforms
to wear to a distant boarding school
to the beautiful wedding dresses
she’s blessed us with since
and the legendary taffeta numbers
worn to numerous balls and do’s
and I always sigh with pride looking
at my first communion photo:
the pretty little dark-haired girlie in
loving white with black leather boots
21...ABOUT THREE SISTERS & ONE THIRD WIFE
we are visiting the half-way pregnant
Italian third wife of my closest brother
and we are both turning 40
the third wife is distraught with oedema
& moving house to little Italy near the sister
from whom life oozes, a feast of bosom warmth.
but her, too, the family ghost has mauled too much;
we watch thelma & louise, and are happy
it ends tragically because then it’s not an option
when you have children to walk out on them
though with my finger on the same trigger
there may have been times I would have shot
the rapist & set fire to everything a man owned
when he had violated everything I owned, but
I forget to protect myself and afterwards I forget.
our other sister never forgets anything
she is very brave living with a wolf at her door,
lupus—all the time her body fights itself...
I cannot live without rest, lord let memory have
a long fuse, if it’s only short I may not have time
to forget and I want us to grow old together
22...FOR STAN (& all those who make a stand)
birth is often described only as an outcome
it’s an especially peace-presenced
afternoon at Stan’s Yelgun property.
birds bruise the day’s winter belly
and gentle-fingered wandering light
pulls at the fray-edged lounge
easing us into their story of
crusade / harassment / courage
the kids’ chatter dapples the edges
clattering their bikes up&down the drive
and the cup of tea with honey
on an old cane tray mellow me,
only further underscoring
the tension of their words.
I notice this man’s eyes as blue
as his wife’s, her thinness,
his receding hair, her tresses,
his thick gold ring on his left hand
turned a quarter round,
his modulation, her resignation.
dignity makes its own choices
and reality asserts itself.
power ultimately goes to the brave -
these two may be tired
but the best fighters pray on
long past tiredness…
23...ONE MORE GONE
one more gone
a goodtime girl o.d.ing
one more hit ricocheting
around the pinball parlour game
of dissipated dreams & betrayal
in heritage park mullumbimby
where the grass and the trees groan
with summer six o’clock shadow
and the sluggish river gait
of the chi-coloured Brunswick
rewards the reminiscer,
the memorial get-together
is epitome-alternate,
fey, androgynous,
anonymous, and skinny
the god of love is diminished
to incense subtleties & crushed flowers
a tabernacle housing a disco mirrorball
whirling past stars of days come&gone
blurred forgotten and needing to be fixed
where before the beautiful woman’s
photos, we agree to the need
to look after each other more.
into the river our song runs,
such humbled grief-corner’d hope
24...WHERE WE ARE AGAIN, HOME
waking up, I think: it keeps us
young, the ancient optimism
of making a new home
the finding of a vase here
a salad bowl there
and extra linen from mum
my first husband, wanting some time
in the outback, we spend our year
between lullawala and kuranda
and then he, wanting time
in the mountains, packs us up to
Wanaka in the alps of new zealand
much earlier than this
(on my way overseas)
I made it to Sydney
before settling in Byron bay
post nimbin—when it
was a frontier, not a holiday
returning briefly years and years
later, the compass still
spins, point further north
we barely unpack in surfers
make it to cairns, sit out
our first monsoon
light another easter candle
and pull out the bits & pieces
of books and cushion covers
that have made it across the sea
and through the length of a country
to where we are again, home
25...MILESTONE
into your hands
I breathed the map
seeds with wings
needing to be planted
before futures fly free
giving everything to you
where I wait for you
I have earned the right
to hold your hand
at the curling
over edge
of the wave
sand dune
lip of the half-pipe flip,
the shape of where
we have been
is changed
flying feetfirst
looping a freefall
against white sky
I tell my children
to always find their core,
better to plant seeds
of mountains & seas
closer to the sun
than most of us
dream of
26...IN THE SPACE
of the buttery warm sun
on skin grateful with pulse
of soil-smell heavy air
roiling before a storm
of the bee-buzz background surf
sound teasing into tired ears
of breeze percolating in gumtrees
overhead on hot afternoons
of your children’s breath hugging
into your neck’s hollows
of prayer-peace encircling,
shielding from sorrow
in the space made between me
and the people who love me
laughter and sunshine
make me happy
can I only wish for you calamity
enough to value what you have
so you die understanding
the noun & verb for light
27...LONG STRONG SONG
let me sing a long strong song
and please you hum along
I am only given words
you are the tune
my heart’s drum
you are the song
I play upon
my daddy was as Buddha
but jesus is my friend
I’ve karma’d with junkies
& swum deep waters
the grinding pulse of 9-5
has kept wolves alove
hungry at the door, and
oh yes, I’ve seen more
the grace of lightening
I’ve held my searching face
my child’s neck
I’ve traced wondering hands
down my lover’s back
I’ve hugged grieving friends
with tears of death and pain
and nights I’ve quietened fear
withprayer and meditation
I’ve been where mountains
are as ancestors
and I’ve lived where the sea
is what you breathe
I’ve birthed powerful children
and loved amazing men
I bear the scars of loss
and feel the weight of age
I’ve not always know the meaning
but I’ve always turned the page
28...ANGELUS BELLS & WATER ANGELS
swimming at midday
a water-angel
follows me
changing shape
even as I attempt
connection
womb-somersaulting
in the lack of a.m.
and p.m.
it is a time-slide
where we are
reminded
of protection
from demons
and love-deficits
29...GOD’S GRAMMAR
mum has been
a given
in our lives
like gravity
or grammar
or light
or soil in a garden
or saliva or tears
or blood
a strong
& persistent
heartbeat
not reduced
by gender
or generation
a cup-of-coffee
adrenaline
for the storms
on the messy ocean
of our days and the
tsunami of our nights
resurrecting rosaries
of meaning across
shared decades
punctuated with
the grammar
of God
30...BELONGING (Daintree Far Nth Queensland)
A dawning sunlight
another day
jungle’d forest
around me
black butterfly
near my cheek
blue-beaked bird
streaking past
green pulsing curtain
between us
the gently slapping sea
unseen and sleepy
napping in the burre
a daughter purrs
for me to join her
unfrenzied in the heat
but I drink my coffee
listening with
the gravity of
my body’s tides
it is a familiar sun
a myriad lives
in rainbow spirit
pacific, resonant
31...ELEMENTAL
a departure from Australia marked by red dust
all down the East Coast and across the Tasman:
friends, brothers, sisters, in-laws, nieces, nephews,
pizza, bubbles, toblerone, chocolate ice, and a
desert-crying storm from Cairns to Christchurch
and here it is singing spring, scarf-flower’d bamboo
semi-circling the simple ceremony on the Avon River
sacred with the elemental words: “I do!”
a blessing on the rings for unbrokenness
and the future surges forward…
more sunshine! pizza, bubbles, truffles, cake,
baileys and a beer (or two), Riverview Terrace
and the Crowne friendly, fun, and overall, sunny -
a universe’s quiet answer to why here? why now?
whisper’d from mauve-freckled orchid hearts
32...WHAT TO SAY AT A TIME OF NATURAL DISASTER?
cyclone surf pounds massively
tearing shoreline into foaming shreds
what do I have to say that is not salted
with words whipped from chapped lips?
all turn away from the story, as ever,
tragedy earthquaking not (now) here
but this ship, groaning & miles shy
of safe port, turns to the platinum sky
ballast, tried & tested in greater seas shifts
a praying load, and leans across the tsunami
I ask not, are you there? but take the hand
that needs immediately, survival.
de-sskinned by age, I have only one lifeline
after all these years where peace presents
in different skins, only one is as oil on water,
cover from radiation, that one is jesus,
and I survive by small miracles, battening
down the hatches of night with prayer
34...EASTER HANGI
the men dig the hole
in the wet paddock
tissues of mist
catching on their hair
together they sod
the damp earth
telling of mountains
climbed & old sweat
the pit is dug
to feed whanau,
the firewood gathered
to heat the stones
none of us are sure
whether the food
will be alright
but rites are shared
of prayer & hugs
the meat is aromatic,
the basil & apple
just perfect!
and the kumara
potatoes pumpkin
carrots corn & cabbage
are delicious
35...CALL
rider of high winds howling in the valleys
you call whipper of waves roaring on the lakes
you call son of god throating all language
you call clother of shadows
the same yesterday today and forever
empowerer of now you call
the one whom all other gods melt back from
the fire in the opal the green in the stone
you call… you call… you call…
I have no belonging but your voice
man woman child & future wing towards
here I am hearer of wind & rider of currents
of webb of murray of baxter the Christ
to whom we owe our all in all through all
and of all we are servant and seer
workers of words & wisdom & were
we ignored others would be called
make a way for all to be one
a place for the homeless the lonely the tired …
where there is no song sing One,
where there is no home be One,
where there is no past, I Am One
36...STILL STEADY STRONG
still my spirit
steady my soul
strong my body
moisture-misted moon,
wind-hissed trees
x-raying upwards
bared blacken-d branches
smoke sifting through
pine-angled ridges
still my spirit
steady my soul
strong my body
Matukituki volleying peaks,
soft lapping of wavelets
with sun-tipped ripples
blue-silver’d lake laugh
languorously mouthing light
to mood-cloudy skies
still my spirit
steady my soul
strong my body
long-crouching hills
cradling young towns
and old waters
days dangling
in their own rhythms
without staccato
still my spirit
steady my soul
strong my body
37...CICADAS (Singapore Art Museum)
A PICTURE PAINTS
A THOUSAND WORDS
but I want to pin descriptions
to brooches of understanding
Chua Ek Kay’s
SONG OF CICADA 1995
(ink & colour, 4 panels,
Chinese scrolls)
rather awkwardness
than skilfulness
littered with the cast-off
shells of cicadas whose songs
on warm balmy nights under
humid moons have long gone
ink cicadas crunched one by one
across the huge hanging scrolls
know something of melancholy,
singing their awkward images
rather praise
than sacrifice
38...HOME IS THE ARMS AROUND ME
Wanaka / Christchurch
mist patting down the damp hills
the car knifes its warm way
through the highway
Singapore
chilli crab, black pepper prawns & Tiger Beer,
scrub our hands in the bucket
under the live lobsters
London flight
tiredness throws out its anchor
over the English Channel,
chewing on us its jetlagged hours
Nottingham / Glasgow
we shake hands with history
slipping on the pigeon shit
crusting the slate Glendree via Feakle, County Clare
stars carving off core sun
birthed from the cottage hearthfire,
handcut peat burning in the grate
Galway
on wistful sun-rayed hills,
a claddagh ring:
“I hold your heart in my heands
and crown it with my love”
after Paris
bbq’d home-killed lamb, and raspberries,
the first long ale is poured
with songs on the way to happen
New York / Los Angeles / Auckland
raisin bagels, eggplant pizza & Budweiser,
Ground Zero and a Redondo Beach moon
all blur towards a 5am customs gate
39...BORROWING THE TENNIS RACKETS
(Wanaka celebrates Otago’s 15th anniversary)
at the town hall we’re looking at amy’s family tree painting.
we bump into lyn the porter from edgewater who’s just resigned.
she’s pregnant with twins, but to me she’ll always be heavy
with the title of Grand Show Champion… of winning shortbread
& lemon meringue sections, sponge & decorated cakes, flower
arrangements & embroidery—she has been queen year after year—
this one, she is Marshall, & with the respect of competitors,
I point her out to the kids, “remember lyn the porter at my work?”
(they’ve spent time there, ordering Traffic Lights and Nuggets,
feeling grown up and cool, and borrowing the tennis rackets).
“She’s left now, she’s going to have twins!” - but their eyes
glaze over with how insignificant this is to their world.
so little of life is sacramental & I drink an imaginery chalice
to us all right there in the middle of time’s trophies of old ledgers
& punt crossings: to mark & rob & don who are climbing Mt Brewster
tonight… to lyn from edgewater, pam & brett, dave & Helen …
to calum & andrea the paradise people, steadying influences
on the heady intolerances of small town stuff … to my friends
grace & Margaret & Stacey & jen & nina … to my workmates
wrestling with low wages & hospitality burnout … to peter &
Lorraine for all their inspiration & motivation, their swimming
& ski-ing teams, their wonderful children … and above all
to the teachers, especially peter child who guided up up
the Matukituki Valley all those years ago on our honeymoon
when we didn’t know that we’d be back. look, there,
in front of the Mt Aspiring climbing book on the title page,
from the bible, “THIS IS THE WAY, WALK IN IT.”
40...CONNECTION
I wanted to breathe people holidaying
to share in the colour the celebration
the icecream-eating water-spraying
relief of a Wanaka summer afternoon
I have to push past
the press of housework mess
and medical centre rosters
claustrophobing a thick cotton’d
spider’s duty-cocoon around me
the greyness pulling against my face
as though I am developing my way
out of a photo negative into colour
I am going to visit Christine I say
I need connection
the charge of spirit
that leaps across the emptiness
and is understood
Lyndon comes
bouncing his boy energy
around me like a rubber ball
Christine is not there
so we go into the garage art gallery
across from the new world supermarket
and here I connect
the face of Christ over&over
again on a mounted montage
41...DRESSING TABLE FABLES
as a little girl the eldest of six
my space was lost in family scuffle
and I dreamed of owning a signet ring
as a young teenager I idolised
an ivory-smooth soft-contoured statue
of mother mary on my boarding school locker
& I dreamed of being a nun
with a covenant-sister-of-mercy ring
with “to You I belong” under the rim
as a young adult there were hippy rings,
a black handpainted neon-highlighted zodiac
& a pen&ink selfportrait in a bondi flat
then a pearl ring with its opaque mystery
sat next to a chunky silver watch bracelet
given for sixteenth & twentfirst milestones
with a small boxful of Colorado turquoises
from dad on an old crumbling fire mantelpiece
at melody street coogee in sydney
our houseful of happy hippy christian girlies
daydreaming in velvet & flute’d tones
of a place where no-one cried
now I wear bands of gold & diamond,
and red garnets & green peridot,
all gestures of belonging
my dressing table has lace & sandalwood
in front of an old mirror marking seasons
with jasmine, camellia and cat’s whisker
42...GIRL PLAYING VIOLIN IN THE RAIN
tall with laughter the girl walks along
the road through a rainstorm with a friend
playing her violin so nonchalantly
so lightly released from the duty of practise
the notes reach me still through the percussion
of raindrops pattering off the tar
the song I hear is of what death feels like
the upward tug into sky then whoosh and away
looking down on to the world you belong to
(but not now), notes released from a well-used violin
43...THE WILLOW TREE
I’ve heard tell of a willow long gone
from outside the old Wanaka Hall
whose branches would be posted
with all the district goings on…
can you hear them still, the stories
of all a small community can recall?
The horses and dogs were hero & friend
then, and the brave wives & children
brought from far off to face loneliness,
drownings & fire, but despite distance
as foe, through it all, they stayed fast
to faith, St Columba’s & old Pembroke!
So over the years, songs of the seasons
have sung through church eaves—of births,
and deaths, hardships and difficulties,
and not without claiming fathers, sons,
wives, daughters, lives the price of land,
and the blooding of two World Wars.
Still lured by mountain & lake, land & snow,
from shadow-wobble of kerosene wick
to the star-twinkle of snow-makers,
from flickering talkies at the old Hall
to movies at the legendary Paradiso,
whispering through leaves of that ghost
willow tree, the Lake Wanaka history.
44...GRANTED
along the great divide
of your life and mine
a bracelet pathways.
the belcher chain doubles
on itself & parrot-clasped
is as a pass, or a bridge, with
a ridged mountain range
of sapphires rubies pearls
diamonds jade topaz,
a gold heart tallied centrally
a cross of swarovsky crystals
alight with the light of life
blazes rainbows towards us,
refracting each talisman’s
life, death and resurrection -
a halo of memories
that is not quite ours
but granted anyway,
the life we didn’t have.
45...QUICKSAND
this pen I give
to the measure
of what I have
a loaf, crumbs
to feed five
thousand
this water of ink
turned to the wine
of words
pinning the wings
of the spinning years
onto the blue
pulling the sky
out of the
quicksand days
and plaiting it
into a signet ring
initialled with solace
