Casting off

Cast off accoutrements
Don dancing shoes
Second summer echoes
Through wine bars
Breweries
Trees on second wind
Greening the byways
Good cheer pouring
Positive meniscus
Sips. Smile. Sit back.
Breathe.
Too much goodness
Enough to leave the crust
The best is yet to come
love this...
Enough to last the year

Percussive maintenance

Piles of memories
Stored in boxes
Outside
A pond growing
All sorts of things
Refreshed by
Overflowing gutters
Four pairs of eyes
Two adult-sized
Watching me
Right myself
After king hits
Like some cheesy
80's game show
On a slippery pole
With only a pool noodle
To defend us

Wednesday is taken up
Keeping back the jungle
Before it overtakes
With long lost friends
Recovered
Doing the same kind
Of anger management
With garden appliances
Keeping weeds at bay
While admiring
Their flowers
The bumblebee
Thanks us for our efforts
We find that this
Is pleasure enough

In this day
At our stage
Of life re-mended
Signs of life
Warmth and greeting
Between wounded hearts
Still beating
Tended edges show
Signs of life

Constant dripping
Feeding
Engine humming
People crawl out
From hiding
Expats leaving
Reminded by
More significant
Bloodlines receiving
With love

The bravest woman I know

To the woman with no means
Who spends her time
Cleaning

Cares for all littlest
Both furred and skin
Breeding

Bringing lively heartbeats
Into tearful world
Dreaming

Paring back overgrowth
Give wings to spread
Believing

Turning the other cheek
At the partnership
Leaving

Turning new leaf
Love a fortune
Receiving

Voyeur

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

Clear felling

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
Wombat at Bonorong Wildlife Rescue, lutruwita / Tasmania, Australia.

Sea sickness

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

Point to pinnacle

Solid star hovering over
Posing in greyness
Striking through deliberate
Claiming the pinnacle
Peak most tender point
Baring nerve endings
Of the mountain
Changeable in season
Day and hour
Unpredictable
Never tire of watching
Waiting to draw curtain
From mist and storm
Evaporating
One day lost from
Following twisting paths
Do we never leave
Sea level again?
How to find you now
Not knowing the place
Like the back of my hand
Hiding in the crevices
Waiting for help at hand
Sea legs cave under me
Used to bouyancy
Not the heavy hand
Of altitude
Beckoning voice
Reckons waypoints
Would never be reached
To begin with

Bane of indifference

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