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

Eve

Woollens hung on bedside chair
Buckets brimming with outer wear
Sticks and bottles, spikes and flasks
Beanies and even balaclava mask.

Promise of adventure lingers still
On the lee of dreams fulfilled
Anxious thoughts evade like mist
Must protect the glare skin kiss.

Nuts and bars, apple for the car
Cosy comforts carry too far
Tunes to take us on the ride
To alpine wonders, step outside.
Hartz Mountain National Park
Photo by Sara Stevens

Silence speaks

A source of great strength 
A true friend who never betrays
The sleep that nourishes wisdom
More powerful than proving a point
It is golden
A sanctuary for the soul or
An ultimate weapon of power

Whether embraced or imposed
May your silence be filled with bird song and laughter
By this, if a weapon, may it lose its power.

Rubble

I barely remember the wall coming down
Though tender renowned
Perestroika and glasnost
My Minsk pen pal
Whom I nearly visited
If not for that iron curtain
A downed air plane
VHS player was their request
For duty free on the plane
From a 10 year old
Broken wall boundaries
Parenting –
Though missed a trip
To America
With my swim club
Too young, they guffawed
Knotts Berry Farm
Apparently more dangerous than
Newly formed USSR.

This house I built

Decades saved, not wasted, this house I built
Devoted hands, gainful work, nights and weekends
Searched longingly up and down, high streets and low
Waiting for my heart to jump out, at the sight of her
Saved, invested, scrimped and pawned
Hoping one day, enter new dawn
Window closed, garden bare, I set upon the terrace stair
Knocked and waited, in the rain
Admiring abalone strewn along front wall
Evidence of inhabitants, though no one there
Someone lived inside once, absence inlaid in rainbow pearl
Me and view of quaint corner garden, sandstone steps
Panorama or paranormal, needn't matter
This house, I have built with hearts and hands
Love inhabits and dwells always, echoes in empty rooms
Filled with laughter, stories and poems
My life, I have built, a shelter from storms
Will water soil for one-day blooms.
Maria Island, Tasmania.