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.