Finders keepers…

So simplistic were the rhymes
Of my childhood
Aesop and Mother Goose
Taught me how to be good
Kind and wise
Avoid Miss-Understood

Yet, they did not share with me
In black and white ink
How to dare to care 
When life is on the brink
Of falling in and down
Afraid there is no settling

The nesting and pruning
Of love birds in tune
With one another
Humdrum forgetting
Singing, fanning plumage
Making room

If you should find a lover
Try to keep her hand
But if lost remember -
Not to weep for
The Summer nights
On a cold, dark night
in June.

Silver fox

Grey lady hanging on
To the edge
Overlooking harbour view
Slender and proud

Twisting round to glimpse
Decades of bobbing heads
Like buoys on waves
Coming in shivering

Brave showing her age
Engraved beauty
Limbs reach out
Welcome stranded men

Come warm yourself
On the rocky shores
Casting a shadow
To danger marker

Pointing windeward
Shaped by her forces
Invisibly caressing
To bow and bend

A heart full

Funny how Cosette
Hands clutched to heart
Could sing of love
While another watching on
Full and empty
Is often only
A few streets
Between them
Mind games
Toying teasing
Playing with its strings
Only hurts the more
When love comes to
An end
How often no one knows
For whom
The river runs deeply
Until it flows no more

All that glitters

Fur babies and toddlers
Ambled up and down
Undulating hills
Edge of grass against
Soft waves of sand
All breeds of humans
Come from sun up to down
I landed on these shores
To start a life anew
To resurrect and hope
For a future
Somehow the shine
On the water
Brightens the day
Even when tears
Choke back the words
A stranger sits beside me
And is more of a friend
Than any
Telling me her story
Without asking
Noticing my tears
She bids farewell
I say goodbye to Ollie
Her dog
She smiles
Acknowledging
Her one and only
Love

Framed

Deciding upon
What to adorn
My walls
To keep me content
In case we need to
stay in again

Thick oak-look frame
Appearance is everything
Sandstone smiles
In the shade
Sun behind
Holding up a glorious
Bouquet of natives
Flannel flower power
Blue gum leaves
My own arrangement
By request
Selected anything
With white bloom
Tea tree in season
Looking like
A big cauliflower
Dried nicely
In my room
I remember

The next a mirror
Painted frame
Like retro glam
Gold and silver
Telling me
Look at you
-How you've weathered
So nicely
In the stormy seas-
Looking at me

Another gold
Circular seal
With purple
For royalty
A lineage
When born again
Not feeling it
In fact it tells me
Yes you studied
Greek among men
Not so different
From the halls
Of Plato
Ecumenicum
Blending in
With other
Women
Carry a Grecian
Jug on my head
So as not to attract
Attention

A bold shot of blue
Spread from end to end
Covered in blossoms
From a shaky hand
Eyes near blind
World inside
The mind of Monet
My dear almond blossom
Friend
Telling me it's time
To leave these walls
Behind
Remember the branch
Severed at one end
Can bloom and grow
Again
View of blossom tree, from the ground.

Mind matters

I wish to be your human
And you could be mine
-My feline friend says proudly-
I hope you don't mind

Such bravery to crawl on me
And underneath the covers
To twirl between my legs
Kiss my nose like I'm his mother

Such boldness is endearing
For what else really matters
Than telling your favourite human
That their absence leaves you scattered

To be near you every day
Or even once a week
Would make all of the difference
To the life I'd wish to lead

To be with you and drink
In the regular everyday
When I run out of words
And hear all you have to say

But dare I say I am
With you always anyway
Only river between
Not an ocean or a fray

- Rest assured I'd gladly swim
The distance any day -

Can you believe my thoughts
Are often interrupted
By the time you liked my shirt
Or by a joke, at me, directed

The time you sat beside me
Every word believed as true
Reciting leaves and lemon trees
Realised was all for you

Painting of a picture
With those stories far and wild
Imagine all those places
From your thoughts to ease my mind

A literary meeting
Like some tower here in Oz
Where heart, soul and mind
Find out they were there
All along

Super Flower Blood Moon Eclipse

Pulling me in closely 
Like moon and tide
Always the atmosphere
Between us

Watching waves coarsing
Supposedly on their own
Nothing to do with
The bright light of the moon

Turning dark one night
Super Flower Blood Moon's
Power over me, pulling
Closer every night

Long distance drawing in
Accidents and happenstance
Near misses and stresses
How did I get here?

Land eventually
Wondering if I make it
Through to you
Never leaving

Moon and tide dance
Back and forth
Two great forces
Land on her shores?

Eternally beholden
One to another
Moon starved of water
Tide drawing closer

Sea rises to meet
Rings round mist
Kisses moon light
Returns to earth beneath

Beauty in remaking

Fine lines and filagree tracing
Fingers follow edges
Soft downy folds
Velvety lacing

Artful designer raises
Takes down asunder
Plundering wealth
Riches beyond dreams
Earth Woman wonder

Just as in a day
Can take a breath
Enslave it
By evening freed
In listless sigh
Of resignation
And sleep
Don't dream it, be it
Is nature's cry
As several evolutions
Of matter
Land on my thigh
Her eyes trace the outlines
Mating decorations
Imagining them away
To nothing
Come undone
Completely
For several hundred and one
Days spent between extremes
Fighting, crying, sight
Laughing, smiling, delight
No greater affirmation
More than three letters
Yes, or I do
In the still dark silence
There is none other
But you
Artists of Tasmania ~ Lucienne Rickard. Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

Steer ashore

Fear grips tightly
At the helm
Taking over orders
Pulling us in

Over our heads
Waves crashing
Broached to
Shoal approaching

No lives lost
Crew is down
Handing over
Dogs to morning

Rolling like a lullaby
Reassuring
Raised a lighthouse
First sighting

Pinnacle gives way
To coast
Welcome faces
Twirling smoke

Casting lines
Shorebound stagger
Every sight new
Intricate beauty

Island delights
Happen upon flower
Resiliently tender
Heart own power

Fear of the storm
All but gone
Only shaking hands
Wide eyed one

Never leaving
Smiles receding
As night creeps in
Farewell again

Handing over everything
Knowing no direction
Trusting wholly
In you