Keeper

Blossoms burst on piles of rubble
Pushed aside building highways through suburbia
They catch the afternoon sun
A showy illumination of pink hits your eyes as you drive towards bleak horizon.

That's what it's like to meet her
It captivates immediately
Exclaim The blossoms are out!
Sit in wonder as to whether
Fruit might be produced
From the meddling of bees upon flower
What kind?

I still wonder
Was it too early, then, to produce anything?
In the life of our young tree
Did the bees delay?
Did the wind invade and blow soft petals away?
Or is the display merely decorative?
Beauty is a keeper.
Four years on, I should surely wonder.
Beehind

Driftwood

I collected all the fallen limbs and driftwood memories.

Looking into your eyes, examining your face
the details of every freckle on your arm, the shape of your ear
your smile and lips.

To make driftwood art and admire it all day.

Some days, the hard ones
It feels like some unknown people piled all our memories up and set it alight.

Warmed themselves by the fire of the passing night of memories that never happened.

It fuels my sadness, a touch of resentment.

Who are these well meaning people, perhaps cold, they were, who had to warm themselves by the fire of us to feel alive.

Who threw in a pinecone of ‘what if’, or ‘why would you’ that sputtered and sparked in the flame.

I know all the things that they say.

I spend my days willing the life out of me, as alone as one can be.

So these humans, whom I do not envy, the ones who are alone like me, can know all the kindness that resides within. As one who knows what alone really means.
Fort Beach, Tasmania

Creating Space

How can one treasure
Empty rooms, plates, faces?
We prefer them filled.
Yet attune space with nothingness.
It is teeming with invisible life.
Things we don't see nor understand.
We require something to magnify it.

How well we occupy
Vast spaces of ocean crescent moon beaches
Even the desert is densely populated.
With hardiest plants and creatures.
Content in their remote obscurity.

Venture into spaces as yet unknown.
Capture its essence like tintype.
Still, it seems, though ponderous.
Hushed waves from afar burst onto shore.
Roaring white noise as foam
Between toes, tickling.
Wherever you go to seek space
Bring it back, as a treasured poem
To dwell inside for all of life.
Hazards Beach and Mt Freycinet Tasmania.

Carefree Daze

Couples and overseas interlopers
Tread, stoop or jog up
Labyrinthine stairwell
Overseen by rock god overlords
Never impressed by one
Occasional lack of breathlessness.

Many seasons of being
Watched by militant mob
Now I take pride in
How exhausted, fire stoked
Flame faced, perspirated
No shame in it.
I am alive.
Doing what I love
With those who are deserving of mine.

Notice the semblance of
Heart shaped whitewash
Caused by triple sets of dumping waves.
Sometimes, heart-rending pain
Is the way out
To float away
On carefree days.
Wineglass Bay, Freycinet National Park, Tasmania.

Elements

Confident hands work their way
Across this landscape
Cartography of this body
Shifting over decades

Tracing the curvature of spine
Smooth hills rise and fade
Into alluvial plane
Imagine sands of time

Dolorite rock of wisdom
Towers over hidden layers
Sedimentary years of self
Worn down by feet and fury of wind

When I look at this mountain
I feel their eyes, pondering
Who or what we are?
Elements of human Being
The Hazards, Freycinet National Park Tasmania.

No flowers

I'd never say no
To flowers
Affection bouquets
Explosions of colour
On any drab day

However, to the offerings
As a sorry for your
Everything done
Begone and take them with you

I too, have adorned
A loved one with blossoms
In the hope of a smile
In the hope of hope
Though never to cover over
The deep soil of wrongs

Now, no one to bestow
Or receive them from
My lover in nature and I
Such a generous one

Watershed

More so than
The breaking of bread
It's the gentle tap of rain on tin roof
That turns into a gale
While two souls gently unfurl
Tummies full of soup
Grateful for gables to collect drops
As hopes, fears and dreams swim in the air.

Steamy plunge of tannins
Soaking in tea cups
Stories waft like mist
On cold winter mornings
As moody songs fill the silent space between two beings.

Wild wings of wind pick up frothy tips of waves and cast them off in spray.
Wow, we proclaim.
Shed our outer skin to soak in deep ocean.
No words needed.
A watershed moment.

One day

Shelves brimming with books
A leather covered nook
Lace curtain dances
On morning breeze
I hurriedly go to work

One day these pages
Will open to me
I will read aloud
To my love over tea

A neighbour stops
To look longingly
At the morning moon
Snaps it with a long lens
While my blue screen eyes glow

One day I will wake
By the light of the moon
Lying on soft tufts of dry moss
We will curl and trace the sun in morning ritual

Ginger cat curls in winter coat
Around blue flowers soaking low lying sun
Lush grass is mown by guinea pigs on a run
New natives thrive in builder's rubble.

One day, on eve of Spring
I will wade through winter garden's tailings
Gather barrowloads of greens to reveal fresh ground
We will chirp like birds at herbs that survived all odds.
Plant companions for their year ahead.

One day, I hope it comes.
Lime Bay, Tasman Peninsula Tasmania

I am grief

You've always known me
But never spoke my name
I was there when you
Stole the pear and were scolded for it.

Loss of innocence

Constant companion
Not often a friend
How else would you know
When to take to the road?

Loss of home

Hillsides and backyards
Over the sea
Walking beside
Though never really seen

Loss of companionship

Stone cold depths of
Silent nights seem
Quiet without voices
Emotions run deep

Loss of me

Acceptance is key

I accept that you are embedded within 
Like a river stone, smooth and sturdy
While life rushes over it
In full spring flood.

I know that I feel it
All the time, unconsciously
It worries me sometimes
How deep it sinks in

Yet, did the river ever wonder
How or why its rocky bed
Ended up buried inside?
Preventing precious sand and silt
From gushing downhill? No

It likely started a millenia ago
As ice carved deep into rock cathedral
Just as parts of me split off
Lost for decades, until now.

Snow melt reveals beauty laid deep
Life flourishes all around it
Sometimes it's heavy, but it grounds me
Save precious gems, my reality.

So this is me letting you go.
Lake Esperance, Hartz National Park Tasmania