Naming day

All along swollen banks
Branches laden with seeds
Heavy from drenching
Rain flooding under feet

An intricate beauty
Calls you to attention
Saying, 'look at me!'
Brushing away dark grey

Standing on her shoulders
Not knowing what to call
Each delight before me
Like a mother she whispers
Call it love

A pink garden variety
Lands on my bedside
Table, couch beside
Picked by hands called love

Machines flooding
House of high tide afloat
Evidence of daily life
To keep warm bodies

Queues of words
Responded in kind
Bring down softly
Tears for fears

Pictures fill the mind
From near, afar, not yet
Teaching me to just be
Naming the days

Abandoning that which
Does not nurture
Grow or teach me
Feed will to love daily
For us

Eve

Won't you meet me
On New Year's Eve
At Nine O'Clock
At the compass rose

Tell me things
About your past
Lead me to wherever
You're going

Take us away
From place of Princes
Down the green
To the waters edge

Where sun and moon
Both kiss the water
As they rise
To greet you
Battery Point, lutruwita / Tasmania

Inner space

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
“Attic Red Figure Lekythos, 480-470BC. Ceramic container for perfume or oil. Nike (Victory) with a vase, a prize for a contest.

John Elliot Museum, University of Tasmania.