The glacial pace of love

It's not a 'thing' anymore
It just is
It floats in space completely unnoticed
No one is looking for it anymore.

No lover, husband, well meaning friend
With satellites to detect
Any kind of force of attraction or affection
Even a glint worth something

This is what it is to have peace - a vacuum in space
A bubble where I breathe, alone
No one else to use up oxygen
Survival mode

Meanwhile, I float
Beneath the image of Mother of the dawn of the universe

Puff and clouds of dust swirl and evaporate in her wake.

I float in beautiful debris lit up by the faraway sun.
Fast-melting the glacier that was once my world.
Lake Osborne, Hartz Mountain National Park

Likro dror

When you let go - that little bird
Into the wild, unrelenting sky
One must be willing to never see her again
To be free means no burden of expectation

They say, there are other birds in the sky
The blackened birds that awaken me each morn
Alight upon suburban fenceline
Sing their well-known song

There is no one like the one you so loved
Love tended and fed, doted upon
The one who recognised your voice as you arrived
Felt the silence once gone
Until the caged perch to which it clung
Felt nothing like love at all
Long Beach Sandy Bay, Tasmania

Castaways

Reminiscent rising sun
Resplendent moon
Vast world undersea
Forest songs swoon

Affectatious orchid tongue
Pungent earth
Fungi throne
Faeries peeping through

What can one do?
When one love elevated
As a mountain peak high
Eyes clear blue sky

Hungry for taste
Salt licked face
Ocean spray
Ride her wave

Never to reach shores
Castaways
Lindisfarne Bay, Hobart Tasmania

Passenger

In all my sweet thoughts
Of riding shotgun
Words caught on tongue
Music at your fingertips

Where shall we go from here?
To the coast, surely?
The mountains, sublime
Some cabin where we can hide

Gather imaginary adventures
Cast them on the wind
Like a flock of shorebirds
Headed to the North Pole

The only passenger, am I
Is one of time
We have journeyed years
Apart, words odometer of miles
Sunrise sky over Bruny Island Tasmania

B flat blues

Birthday blues
comes after you
The coldest day
with longest night

Soft blue sky
won't clear the air
of sullen gloom
When loved ones are
so far and few

To those so close
A silent toast
Poignant message
Like a ghost

The fault to bear
Is mine to groan
For, I'd rather spend
This day alone

But when I do
A quiet knock
Of heart does wonder
Where all went?

Then, blink of eye
The day is spent!
Sunrise at Bellerive on midwinter’s day

Milk Fever

A mother's breast turns 
Feeding the only release
Lest she weep in tune with child

How long will it last?
Interminable desire
To hold fast the nest
In contrast to view ahead

So wild sea eagles
Soar solo surveying over
Rocky shores, pebbles trickle
Vast dolomite column cliffs
Veering skyward - eyeing one another

Young ones too large for nest
I run errands to tick of time
Care package a respite
For a friend whom I like
Caring for other than bloodline

Though I forgot the soy milk
Now it's all I can drink
The taste of it like a chance meeting
Next time I will say the words
Until then, thoughts brew
Like a heady spiced chai
While tea turns tepid
At least, the sun and I.
Quiet Corner, Adventure Bay, Bruny Island Tasmania

Blue space

We are enamoured by
Ever changing aspects and moods
Of mysterious face of the sea
While vast deep is changeless

Storm, wind and tide hurry
With advancing seasons
Turbulence magically awakens
New life on shores, wet and highlands

Nothing is wasted
Rich minerals freighted upon rivers
Every particle useful, deeply stirred
Ready for new forms of life

The stark problem of survival
A problem of keeping alive
The spark of life, a matter of existing
No demands made, a dormant state

Take these blue fathoms and pair with blue space above
A steady cure-all, surely, for human race
Yet, do not deny need for one blue pill daily.
Cloudy Bay, Bruny Island Tasmania

Poem derived from the text of ‘The Sea Around Us‘ by Rachel Carson, Oxford, 2021, pp. 32-33: Chapter title ‘The Changing Year.’

In the quiet hours

In the quiet hours
Relieved, I reminisce
The times when silence
Were sparse and few

In the quiet hours
Clarity falls like dew
Eyes open, dreams renew
Wishes cast seeds afar

In the quiet hours
Words echo in chambers
Of heart, once a stranger
Now mine to choose love

In the quiet hours
Fears are laid waste
Happy endings hesitate
In favour of new beginning
Eastern Spinebill, Bruny Island Tasmania

Descent

We descend upon oval of scattered sunlight
As if fistfuls of diamonds strewn onto bay
Blinking back at us
Squinting into perpetual horizon
Butterfly shells lain on trail along shoreline
Lapping frothy edge of greedy sea, clutching
Tumbling ripples moulded in sand
Careless gums shed layers
Strewn about like discarded dresses on stage
Leafy mops nodding heady on ocean air
Glittery path meets tentative toes
Kelp gulls call
As a muse, eye of longing
To tread naked and wanting, swallowed whole
Bodacious curves held alight by restless tide
Fondle of chill sting, burn, then numbness sets in
Retreat up winding course a captive to comforts
Imprint of this place
Jetty Beach, held more deeply in thick skin than acetone on paper print
Seeds of dreams planted deep inside
Named will to come alive
Jetty Beach, Bruny Island Tasmania