Talking to strangers III: pumpkin kaya

Pausing in contemplation
before a stack of most admirable pumpkins –
gently ribbed in
yellow-streaked deep forest green –
a trolley stops beside mine,
and a woman says “pumpkin soup”.
We both nod, and stand
admiring these exemplary pumpkins.
I add “and pumpkin scones”,
she adds “and pumpkin kaya”.
We exchange pumpkin lore.
Then each choose a pumpkin,
and go on our way.

Today, making pumpkin kaya,
I wonder if she is making pumpkin scones.

Friday commute

For the dVerse Monday quadrille prompt” “TGIF”, 44 words including Friday.

Fridays I join the stream of red tail-lights,
the exodus down the M5.

I am impatient to leave,
but not to arrive.

The highway is a breathing space,
a liminal place
where I am neither worker
nor wife.

Nothing is required
but to drive.

 

I used to do the weekend commute from Sydney to near-Canberra. I quite miss it sometimes. 

Wagtail

Wagtail chips at the sky
shards of sound falling
sharp as splinters
as he flits to the powerline
where he dances in silence,
his flickering black silhouette
chipping at the blue
his dance as cutting
as his cry.

RIP Soup

I buried Soup this morning. I knew yesterday that he would be gone this morning, from the way he stood huddled, apart from his harem, disinterested in the wheat I scattered.

He was a good fellow; handsome, calm and virile – all one could ask for in a rooster really. He never attacked anyone, and was not overly rough with the hens. He was a good rooster,  and I think he had a good life. He must have been 5 years old or more when he died, having fathered hundreds of chicks and been the alpha male in the coop all that time. He lived his whole life in that coop, having hatched there. But his children have spread, some having gone hundreds of kilometers to new homes.

This morning three chicks hatched in the incubator, and another clutch are due to hatch in a week. These will be the last of his children.

I buried Soup between the apple trees behind the coop. He was a good rooster.

Little Muttmutt goes walkabout

Sort of written for the dVerse mini-prompt for OLN 354 “frequently the woods are pink”. The woods here only ever have any pink when the brittlegums’ bark turns a bit pink before falling off in spring. But I noticed a lot of pink centaury, a pretty but invasive weed, growing in the wetter cleared areas when I was walking with the little ginger-mutt yesterday.

Little Muttmut, dingo child,
raises silent clouds of brown butterflies
from their gathering places
in the cool shade under fallen trees
and rocky outcrops.

Last week’s rains
still trickle slowly down the gully
sewing a ribbon of greens and blues
in the grey-brown leaf-litter blanket
and filling rocky drinking bowls.

Trotting down to the open grasslands
where grasshoppers leap with a click and a whirr
Muttmutt springs and pounces
burying his head in tussocks
fluffed arse pointing skywards.

A confetti of pink centaury
speckles the open ground
where a thin layer of moist soil
nourishes their rosy invasion
of a seldom-used track.

Little Muttmutt silences the frogs
splashing into their pool
for a full-body drink
before shaking, vigorously
(and always rigorously head to tail)
and continuing on his way.

paradise regained

Written for the dVerse prompt “Poetics: City Love“, to write a poem about the city you live in, used to live in, or  visited recently. For me, that was a trip to Melbourne last week about an 8 hour drive away. 

Having steeled myself
XXXfor the noise
XXXthe smell
XXXthe hard concrete greys
XXXof an urban hell
with help from a pharmacopeia
in the pockets of my bag
I get through the days, and,
(more challenging)
the nights as well.

And, in fairness, I cannot say it is all bad –
XXXwe visit the gallery
XXXsee a show
XXXeat café breakfasts
XXXand watch the flow
of all the people passing by,
talking to invisible others
(are they mad or on the phone?)
much as we would watch
an Attenborough doco.

Leaving, we take the slow way north,
through an endless suburban purgatory
XXXpetrol stations
XXXshopping centres
XXXand houses, houses, houses
XXXfor an hour
before I see the best view of Melbourne
(in the rearview mirror)
and as the distances markers on the Hume tick by
the welcoming greens and blues
surround and soothe.

scented notes

Monday

Butterfly season
clouds of common browns rise from the leaflitter
swirling through the summer-holiday scented air

Tuesday

The overwhelming complexity of city air:
hot concrete scented steam rising from the pavement
mingles with traffic fumes, jasmine, pine mulch and exotic dinners

Wednesday

Rain, rain, and again rain:
the satisfying scent of brown water as it overspills creek and dam
overlaid with the clean breath of eucalyptus

Thursday

wet leaves glint
in the fresh-washed sunlight, the air smells blue
and a snippet of rainbow hangs in the clouds

Friday

butterflies again,
brown wings slowly beating, as they sip sweetness from the
scraggly roadside Sifton bush

Sunday October 1st, 2023. Snapshots

0700
Daylight savings crept in and stole an hour.
0600, 0700, whatever. The house is cool and quiet,
red pens and a pile of papers wait on the kitchen table.

Never look at the names before marking.
But red crosses slashed against random equations
says I know these were the back-row boys.

0900
Little Muttmutt monsters the pig,
nipping her heels and ears
a yapping David to her Goliath.

Balance the hens waterers under the tap,
they will need them all full today.
9 eggs by 9am – they get their work done early too.

1100
Warm milk, sugar and yeast,
cinnamon and cloves –
their promise fills the air.

Stretched and folded a hundred times,
the flesh-warm dough rests
slowly swelling in the tins.

1500
First of October and already the first cicadas.
A few clicks like a sprinkler starting
then they inundate the bush.

The wind whips up the dust
and a willy-willy crosses the road in front of us,
and disappears at the edge.

At the creek we skim stones across brown water
under a condensed blue sky.
The little one wades in to retrieve the best stones.

1700
NJ waves from the cow shed.
I leave a dozen eggs and a loaf in her kitchen,
little Muttmutt tussles with his buddies.

Back up the hill into a hot headwind.
We push through a wall of cicada-roar
into the eucalypt shade.

2100
Little Muttmutt swears at the darkness,
running back and forth yelling
faaark faark faaark.

Bunyips and the like scared off
he claims his dentastick
and curls up on his bed.

prosery – turnsole and belladonna

For today’s dVerse prosey prompt, to use the line “To be pretty for you I have dropped two seeds of turnsole in the dark of both eyes.”  from the poem garden  “Garden” by Isabel Duarte Gray in a short piece of prose, no more than 144 words.     

 

All night I waited for you. I plucked up my courage as I plucked the rose petals to scent this bed for you. I have whitened my face with lily root to be pretty for you. I have dropped two seeds of turnsole in the dark of both eyes to hide the red from my tears, and two drops of belladonna to give you dark pools to gaze into. And I have waited for you, as you asked of me, to prove my love. Although I am afraid. But now the dawn is reaching her arms across the sky and the night is turning from her. And these white sheets are reddened only with crushed petals.

almost-nightly walk, with little mutt

For the dVerse prompt “take a walk with me“.  

 

I am feeling hostile,
so I don’t ask if anyone wants to come.

Apart from the little mutt of course,
who doesn’t need to be asked
but leaps around me joyously
as soon as I get my shoes.

Outside the sky is hearts-ease hued;
deepening purple over a yellow glow,
so fitting for early spring –
mirroring the small faces shyly peeking up at the daffodils.

There is still enough light to see the shapes of trees
and I watch the little mutt race ahead up the hill
not noticing that I have turned the other way.
Eventually he will realise, and come racing back.

The sound of our footsteps changes,
from soft padding on the bitumen –
the only sealed bit for 10km around –
to the crunch of gravel.

A plane rumbles overhead
on the Canberra to Sydney route.

The scent changes from dusty-sweet wattle
to horse paddock –
saffron scent of hay
to cow manure – warm and pungent.

We are barely through the gate
before the barking starts.

Little mutt races to meet his friend
a lolloping long-haired blond,
smarter than he looks, but still recovering
from the trauma of an electrified cage.

They leap about one another,
all teeth and hair and wagging tails.

N_ waits at the house, her old dog standing guard.
He is now the three-legged patriarch of the pack
and growls at the bouncing youngsters
who are left outside to cavort.

I rarely leave or arrive empty handed –
on this visit I bring dinner
and leave with milk, barely cooled,
and cheese and home-cured olives.

I promise to bring a load of wood,
as winter is coming back for a brief spell.

Full dark by the time gossip is exchanged,
and I take my leave,
calling the little mutt away from his friend.
All three dogs are rescues.

Maybe N_ and I are too.
Maybe everyone is.

The air is cold now, and smells of wet grass
although there has been no rain.

Back up the hill, serenaded by a thousand frogs,
with the milky way stretched above me,
north to south,
with the southern cross at one end.

The milk bottle digs into my hand
but it is too cold now for it to hurt.

We reach the gate,
and there is the familiar jangle as I latch it,
little mutt scooching through
although he could just as easily go underneath.

And there through the trees
are the lights of home.