I have nothing more to say, except that this really happened.

Le Colline della Toscana in Primavera

Paola speaks English like my Italian –

A jumble of key words joined by hit-or-miss

Conjunctions and directions.

“See you reach small village name Rosano

All right from bridge then

Other way to road no pav-ed.

You turn to villa here.”

On the phone, in the dark,

I hear U-turn

But in miraculous ways

Try to think like Paola.

There was no U-turn, just a left

Beyond the village as the villa

Lit the track with welcome.

Morning unfolded like

Waking from an ages-old sleep, the hills’

Rich dough turning slowly in the chef’s bowl,

Toes pressing into cool grass,

Distance beckoning from olive grove,

Vineyard and thicket.

Near and far, the quiet, blood-warm breeze

Floated a gentle condiment: a fairy river

Of seeds of giant dandelion.

Thick in the air, they softened perception

From dream-like to dream; we did not move

Lest we wake again.

Paola sang from the kitchen;

Niccolo smiled beside us, reading our thoughts,

“It is a dream, yes?”

Summer evokes memories. I must be something about its sensuality: Light clothing, heat, floral fragrances, sweat, skin. Suddenly you find yourself in a fold in space and time, and things from long ago move through your heart and mind….

Clanville Road

I drove down Clanville Road last night.

Summer with the windows down

Transporting myself through

A corrugation in time,

The old road swayed and dipped

Before the car swayed and dipped

And I knew each nuance

Like each furrow in my shin bone,

Like each time you drove the bathroom

Window open to wave goodbye

As I flew up the side street

Having only just rolled off in 2 a.m. silence

So as not to wake your parents.

I drove past Clanville Park last night,

Tasting the breeze of thirty-odd

Years before, this body

Now testing basic structural principles

In its lack of integrity, insipid, as if

The balance of years had somehow

Reversed – the strong, healthy young man

Bereft and needy in heart –

Now driven, as a pilgrim to unity

Of purpose while his ageing body,

Bereft, needy, arthritic and balding,

Looks for a resting place.

I turned from Clanville Road last night,

Though wanting it to last, so I could tell

That young man what to look for,

How to love, how to break

Himself before the accumulating cache

Of what he didn’t choose chose for him –

A coalescing fear that drove away all

That he held dear and melted

What resembled the chassis of his life.

I wanted to brake, tell him to pull over,

That the breeze that feels like freedom

Never is, but still feels that way,

Wanting him to know the difference.

It was a beautiful evening yesterday….perfect temperature. Our view from our restaurant on top of Old Customs House looked out to the bridge, Circular Quay and across to The Rocks. Like always happens, the need for connectedness took over……

The Rocks

With the air cleansed by a balmy nor-easter,

Evening sun-lines are clean and taut

Across gable and façade,

Like a Drysdale without the dust.

Bridge pylons are bold art deco frames,

Glowing granite, incised from the grey.

Though my view is made easier

By wine and conviviality,

There is an echo amongst the city canyons

Of life and lives, the merest fraction of which

Call back to the unnoticed life sounds

(Ears full of cars and buses and trains and bars)

Look back to the deepening blue above

(Hidden in plain sight from the movement

And colour and busyness)

Cry back to what we were, where hope,

Desire and meaning were formed

Out of the passion of God.

So turn from George into Hickson,

See the sharp terrace shadows chopped

Into the salmon-pink and aqua salad

The ferries serve at such twilight times

And ask the questions that hardness of heart

Keeps under lock and key

So that we

Could survive in this convict land.

Mind the step to the landing,

Soul filling with the salt air of more than two centuries,

Always freshening, always strengthening

And ask the questions

Ask the questions.

It’s one of those nights where I am well beyond tired, but because of an interruption, find myself wide awake. I thought about Christmas and , in this digital era, how many people stil send Christmas cards. I love getting Christmas cards – the bright biblical scenes in deep blues, the incongruous pictures of gum trees or bowls of fruit. At least they cared, right?

I received a card from an ex-neighbour once and unlike the gaudy or inappropriate, touched me:

Card from Vini

Vini sent a card for Christmas;

Well, Tina sent it, I’d say

And wrote it,

But they were Vini’s words.

Since they’d moved to QLD

We hadn’t heard,

Then the card in

Samoan English which

Said much more than Merry

Christmas.

He said that we were lovely and

That they missed us.

All we’d done

Was share his beers,

His barbecue and be kind

When kindness

Was in short supply.

It’s what you’re supposed to do

As friends but I think that

Maybe they’d lost their way

And so a bit of love made us

The best neighbours

They’d ever had;

That’s what he called us.

I filled up with that.

It’s pretty sad that when

The real stuff is light on the ground

What you find

Becomes a treasure forever.

I have plenty; I should give

More away.

I have a few friends who ride bicycles. It’s not the fact that they choose this as their means of keeping fit; it’s that such otherwise-reasonably-stylish men should should so forsake their sartorial sensibilities….

Men in Lycra

The café morning peace

Undulates at their arrival;

The sleek men,

The coloured men.

They show no emotion

Yet, clumsy without their machines,

Try to look natural

In our world.

Almost inaudible, they murmur

Like out-of-work secret agents

At a convention

Of three;

Their anonymity heavily

Disadvantaged by their suits

In colours that bleed offence

And burn the eyes,

Overlaid with an irony

Of sponsorship by

Fast-food giants or obscure

Wing-nut manufacturers.

Still, they murmur, unaware.

They wear a penance for all

To see and we,

Incredulous, don’t know

What past wrong could be

So great;

The sleek men,

The coloured men.

A few years ago, I went through a period lasting several years, where a good number of those closest to me died. I had carried coffins in five funerals, one after the other. In retrospect, I see that we continue – changed, if we allow it. My sister lost her father and her husband within three weeks of each other. The depths we plumb without getting answers, are sometimes staggering…..

Hope Beach

The first-sun magpie warbled her

Into waking; the rhythmic rumble and hiss of

Surf brought memories like mist then they sharpened.

She opened her eyes to the swaying

Casuarina silhouettes on the bedroom wall

From the low sun; they brought promise when

She looked at Mike as he slept, the colour of hope

And she wanted to touch him but didn’t.

The kettle stirred slowly on the stove.

She stood, arms folded, stoic but small,

Staring through the window to the patch

Behind the dunes where they’d picnicked

Twenty-five years before. They came here

Almost daily in summer with the kids;

He had caught a carpet snake and took it

Home to the old house to keep the vermin down,

Then he got sick, then he got well

But she hadn’t seen a rat in years,

They moved here when he couldn’t work

The old place any more; then he got sick,

Well and now sick for the last time.

It seemed like the perfect place; it

Had happy memories but she couldn’t

Remember why they had moved.

Outside the back door, calm enveloped her:

Children’s voices from the park on

The offshore breeze, the swoop of a kookaburra

Landing in the jacaranda and the always present

Murmur of the waves, like a tap

On the shoulder from eternity.

A few steps to the dune’s crest and the beach

Opened, golden, peaceful and powerful.

She wondered at the sensation – a blanket

Of understanding or indifference – too deep

To be certain. A smile grew within her,

Though she didn’t know why and she wanted

To lift her arms and fly

But where? So she tightened them slightly

Around herself, squeezing out a sigh as the kettle

Song called her from the kitchen.

A few years ago, I went through a period lasting several years, where a good number of those closest to me died. I had carried coffins in five funerals, one after the other. In retrospect, I see that we continue – changed, if we allow it. My sister lost her father and her husband within three weeks of each other. The depths we plumb without getting answers, are sometimes staggering…..

Hope Beach

The first-sun magpie warbled her

Into waking; the rhythmic rumble and hiss of

Surf brought memories like mist then they sharpened.

She opened her eyes to the swaying

Casuarina silhouettes on the bedroom wall

From the low sun; they brought promise when

She looked at Mike as he slept, the colour of hope

And she wanted to touch him but didn’t.

The kettle stirred slowly on the stove.

She stood, arms folded, stoic but small,

Staring through the window to the patch

Behind the dunes where they’d picnicked

Twenty-five years before. They came here

Almost daily in summer with the kids;

He had caught a carpet snake and took it

Home to the old house to keep the vermin down,

Then he got sick, then he got well

But she hadn’t seen a rat in years,

They moved here when he couldn’t work

The old place any more; then he got sick,

Well and now sick for the last time.

It seemed like the perfect place; it

Had happy memories but she couldn’t

Remember why they had moved.

Outside the back door, calm enveloped her:

Children’s voices from the park on

The offshore breeze, the swoop of a kookaburra

Landing in the jacaranda and the always present

Murmur of the waves, like a tap

On the shoulder from eternity.

A few steps to the dune’s crest and the beach

Opened, golden, peaceful and powerful.

She wondered at the sensation – a blanket

Of understanding or indifference – too deep

To be certain. A smile grew within her,

Though she didn’t know why and she wanted

To lift her arms and fly

But where? So she tightened them slightly

Around herself, squeezing out a sigh as the kettle

Song called her from the kitchen.

Ah…the melancholy approaches: A grey day, no movement in the air, and everything conspires to draw attention to meaning….place. Sometimes it demands our attention….

Rain Interruption

There is cat-padding

Outside my window;

And though the dance has come

And gone a thousand times,

Like the pup to a ball or

A dying man to absolution,

I am compelled to ask

No one there,

“Is that rain?”

Cut loose from my desk now,

Wandering concentration

Searches leaf and distance

For the pale grey darts in

Fitful disguise;

A rush of eager comrades,

Too brash for stealth

Suddenly betrays them.

Satisfied, I return to task;

Outside my window now,

A box of Chinese checkers jostles,

Random but regular enough

To be a rhythm.

Return to task – the call nigh

Heeded – until, the checkers are spilled

Before the well-shod army,

Crossing crest and breaking

Headlong to a charge,

Down a gravel hillside.

A butterfly on a collector’s

Board, I have no choice,

Stretched to stare,

And look for my part

In the odyssey

From sky to ocean,

Heaven to earth;

I lose speech,

Traction and place.

For multiplied millennia,

Over steaming mountain, primitive

Forest, timid village, impassive city,

It cleanses, resuscitates,

Births and destroys;

In the dwindling I look past

At my roof gone, my place washed clean,

My days forgotten and

No longer wonder why I wonder

If it is rain.

My son is overseas at the moment – nineteen and “living the life”. Two years ago I wrote a poem about his history, his path, if you will. At that time he was on a collision course with Truth, though he wasn’t aware of it; nor was I aware as I wrote it, that it would only be a short time – less than a year – before that collision. I am eternally grateful that it shunted him onto the path of light and life, as is he.

The poems go together because they tell a story, but to tell too much would remove some of the mystery and open the door for preconceptions……

In the Perspective: Two Photos

By the age of ten, you had made

An artform of nonchalant formality.

In the National Gallery in DC, you stood

Smiling, Mrs Monet beside you,

Blurring her joy from the top of a hill.

Thrilled, you caressed each daub

And stroke with your unique view

Before moving on to

The Seine at Giverny, its depth

And distance drawing you in quiet

Awe to that bank, beneath that tree.

Strange, the distance that time

Creates when ingredients are recast:

Musée de L’Orangerie seven years on,

Before a wall of Water Lilies –

Nonchalant, yes, formal, yes but

Singularly without awe, the child

Assimilated into the leather, smirk

And testosterone, your unique view

Homogenised into a culture that you

Do not fit: Like a dish with a missing

Ingredient – nonchalant, formal, making

The uncertain do for displaced joy.

Ahead, does Claude fade under a graffiti-

Scrawled hoarding and you, unfocussed,

See past to the allusion of your pain?

Or do I glimpse the moment where,

Unfashionably, hope capers across your face

Surprising none more than you.

In the Perspective: Part 2

When you said that you had never felt anything,

Of course, your words were true,

Yet, less subtle shades had drawn you,

Painting scenes of Gratification Now,

And play-actor friends.

My ache was that you would feel,

Taste and touch the real, would

Know the dawn of truth upon your ravaged soul,

Its warming radiance, lighting, exposing, healing;

And the energising call of life, within its glory and sway.

Then you left, packed up nothing

But layers of self, thrown haphazardly

In shopping bags, unsure of if they were needed

Or even if they were yours. And it became

A show and tell, though what you showed and told

Blurred into a quiet pain, an invisible scene,

A silent conversation on board a ship adrift.

How often the momentous appears in an otherwise

Unremarkable day, without portent;

So you, suddenly challenged by the universe

You had shunned,

Yielded, stepped through and found yourself,

Chrysalis-like, beyond.

Cracking, twisting, stretching into the atmosphere

That once was oppression’s air, you felt

The buoyancy and effortless lift that liberty of spirit

Alone manifests; and though it surprised none

More than you, the feeling, intense and impassioned,

Was of coming home.