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.

thank you for cleaning the bathroom sink

For the dVerse Valentine’s day prompt “come and state it plainly“, and for D.  

I don’t love you every day.
You know as well I do
that if I said so I would be lying.
There are days when the irritation
from brushing against each other
day after day
year after year
is like contact dermatitis,
that is never allowed to heal
but just gets more annoying,
until I have to scratch it.
But this constant abrasion
has carved us into shapes
that fit together.
Most days.
 

 

bluebells

For the d’Verse quadrille prompt “for whom the bell tolls“:

 

The bluebells are tardy this year.
Although perhaps I misjudge them,
perhaps they are just cautious –
perhaps, having seen the fate of the tulips,
those princesses reduced to muddied rags –
perhaps they are just waiting for the storms to pass.

 

 

looking up

For the dVerse haibun Monday prompt “Look up”: 

 

The alarm goes off at midnight, its tune dragging me from a dream of… something… something lost as I fumble to swipe the alarm off, clumsy thumbs taking multiple attempts.
Bundled in dressing gowns, coats and blankets we follow our torch beams up the winding dirt driveway. This path has become a ravine in the darkness. Black walls of eucalypts rise to either side, while the milky-way flows glittering above us – a river seen from below.
We come out onto the road, and the sky opens now – its jet-black star-specked canopy carrying the frozen river of stars, pouring east to west around dark island-nebulae.

Lying on our backs,
cold rises into us as
we count falling stars.

 

There was a triple meteor shower visible here on Saturday.  I’m not usually much of an astronomy fan, but I do like meteor showers. It was bloody cold though!  

pastoral care with Hopefully

Written for the dVerse MTB/Poetry form prompt “The eleventh power“: 11 syllables per line, 11 lines, rhyme pattern abababccddd or ababababccc. 

And written because I’ve been wanting to write something about Hopefully. 

Hopefully is a red corduroy dinosaur that came from the same rubbish tip shop that my office couch came from – so I figure he belongs with the couch. He looks handmade, with no tag and with odd details (for a reptile) like a belly button. He seems the sort of dinosaur that should have been loved, and I wonder how he ended up at the tip. When I brought him home my husband named him Nobody Saurus but I prefer Hopefully Nobodysaurus. He now lives in my office and helps me with pastoral care of students (young adults) which is the hardest part of my job. 

 

Made with love and to be loved, Hopefully lives
on the red leather couch in the corner there
where his presence contributes to calmness, gives
a touch of whimsy, of family, of care
for whoever sits to have their problems sieved
while I sit opposite in the old wood chair.
Then, tears dried, and plans in place, solution
decided, and so we reach a conclusion.
Then, I sit on the couch and give Hopefully
the hug that they needed, and so, truthfully,
do I, as the next comes knocking woefully.

 

 

 

words falling, like petals

for d’Verse haibun Monday,  “cherry blossom“:

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. It’s not like I was dangerously ill. I didn’t end up in hospital or on a ventilator or anything like that. I was only really sick for maybe a week, and now this lingering malaise. Like being invisibly weighted about the shoulders and ankles, and drained of energy and enthusiasm for… well, anything.

So I have given myself permission to not try too hard for a while. This is a new thing, and sits uneasily. I tell myself that my mind needs rest just like my body does, and I hope that it’s true. Because I keep expecting to get bored, to feel the urge to do something, to write something. But I don’t. So I’m working shorter hours, no evening walks, no writing. Walks tire me too much, leave me coughing and exhausted. Worse than this, words escape me. Phrases fall apart before they reach the page, scraps of white-noise with no meaning, like cherry blossoms in the wind.

 

my words come apart,

confetti-petals falling

in drifts at my feet