The humble bumblebee
Is fascinated with me
Common sparrow
Stands watch roof peak
Windows empty
Stare down on me
Reflecting sunset
Mirroring eyes
Unknown creatures
Crawl on shoulder sleeve
Listening to incessant
Whispering on breeze
Eight legged arachnids
Move house with me
Settling in
Exploring walls, hallways
Pleasantly content
With new digs
Inhabiting new territory
Small wonders feast eyes
A house of ten feet
Drifting in a daze
Holiday makers
Anywhere we please
To call home
It's too easy to erase
The space an other takes
No place to call home
No favourite dates
Though in absentia
Loved ones grow
Disproportionate to
Size in life
Taking up thought waves
Morning and night
Sitting snugly beside
On a Saturday night
Saving a seat next to
Chair held by arm
As if waiting for you
To return from the bar
Favourite moments play
Like a love song on repeat
Willing me to believe
Wholeheartedly
Despite not seeing
Feeling or holding
Perfume drifting
Evoking sense bodily
Love is real
John Elliot Museum, University of Tasmania.
Life abounds left untouched
For decades rooming in
Nesting, burrowing, preening, pruning
Delighting in bush tucker
With no prior warning
Clear felling takes usunder
Genocide of species
No tree left unturned
Burned to oblivion
Black scar spurned
Picked over by predators
Fossicking through ferns
Determined to rebound
Fungi lost and found
Micro beasts set to work
Turning the earth
Vacant lot staring up sky
No export market to comply
Left in capable hands
Nature covers over land
Blanketing beautifully
Eventually dew drops in
Visitors feel no borders
Spreading seeds at whim
Miniature florist fills
Forest floor with more
Delicious delicacies
Eyes to explore
Flying ducks and frills
Tongues, spots and stars
Undercurrent flowing through
Streams of life here found
Humble paws and pouches
Habitable homely holes
Decide upon return
Once grand statured poles
Neighbourly relations
Diverse as land is wide
Chatter friendly company
Muster side by side
Heart's on my knees
Trying to keep afloat
Through turbulent years
Performance anxiety
Staring at solid ground
Horizon fades
Crest of a wave appears
Galley is silent
Only those with iron cast
Stomach and resolve
Can tend to us
All these fomative years
Stores severely depleted
Only squash and lime
Every hour a day
On lookout all the time
Who steers the ship
Back to safe harbour?
Only curl and wait
Until it's over
Apathy betrays me on regular bases
So long steaming upriver
Now tidal flow pushes back
Downstream to ocean
Where were we going
Into heart of darkness?
Comrades join in singing
Whistling through evergreen
Sleepy villages lie
Smoking signals
Green leaf envy
Flying high the sos
Invisible by night
Jungle hearth glows bright
Still no competing
With our cumulative
Night lights
No spreading of anything
When living beyond
The fringe of existence
Life abounds on the edges
A catalyst for hiding minds
To grow and light fires
Just to stay alive
This is the way to meditate
With a flicker in the eye
Where on this earth
Is there a place to call home?
With resting silence
Chattering streams
Sounds of chirping
In the groves
Do we climb a mountain
And take a ride down
On the rainbow?
Deep blue grey eyes
Watch same coloured clouds
Drift heavily towards us
Like moving mountains
Though weightless to our eyes
Powerful forces hold them
In the sky
A bridge that divides
Also unites
Seasoned minds recall
The day it came down
After rolling the dice
On their way home
So their lives revolve
Staying on side
Never daring to cross
For fear of remembering
Nervously teetering
On edge of floating bridge
Sea spray enveloping
Same waters harmlessly
Tickle toes
At Opossum Bay
We make it look easy
To love
Because we know
Anything else
Than familiarity
Is beyond us
Confronting disparity
If we met by chance
- How many people on this earth? -
Would lady luck allow
Another turn
To find one other
Standing beside
In a place
Made for us
Peering through the gap in the fence
Seeing glimpses of movements
Shifting my weight on my haunches
Ears picking out prominent sounds
Out of the loudness of wind, grasses, cicadas
Talking fluently in the language I feel
Most comfortable in my skin
Waiting for an eye to appear, an ear to receive
Only darting birds believe
What nature knows to be true
Our senses of self flow unkept by the tide gate
Words carried away with wings on the breeze
Warm air rises to meet
All the waves from all the ones
Who agree
Patiently beating away
All the years
Percussive maintenance
For flaws and foibles
Of what I do to you
Loving my body
Choosing to care
For me first
Symbiotic relationship
One to another
Heart to brain
Recall my strength
Of resolve to love
When all else has
Forgot
Haymaking
Sunshine and rain
Brave one who
Hops onboard
Riding forward
While others gather
Receiving stores
Bailing and loading
Sundried piled high
Wheat and straw
For each living thing
In community
Out of rain
Hoping greenness
Had gone away
Save spontaneous
Combustion
Meanwhile few
Content with
Love's gleanings
Slim pickings
On the fringe
Taking only
What they need
To feed or bake
Wheaten loaf
For family roast
Horse or goat
Stave off hunger
Together
For one more day
In the hey daze they believed
Love is all you need
Offspring of starched
Apron generation
A leaf out of a book
Cruel to be kind
Post migration
Preceded by a silent
- Exclamation -
All we see is HMV
Flapper dress hair
Glitz and flare
Through movies eyes
We hypnotize
My conflagration
Of X, Y's, Z's and I
Digital pinnacle to climb
Steadily insisting
We are living in
Unprecented times
This is my generation
Seeking inspiration
With glowing eyes
Yet the sweetest find
Is in your smile
Count the stars of heaven 