I look at the photo
of my long-ago love.
‘Of course I’ll love you
forever, you stupid man,’
I say good-humouredly
to his dear dead profile —
or to his ghost, who
surely no longer doubts.
An extra one for February, in case anyone is reading this one-a-day in a leap year. (Otherwise, you get to read two in one day.)
'You have memories with'
says facebook, naming
the friend I called brother,
who died in 2019. Yes I do,
and don’t need reminders.
summer flowers
finally arrive
as summer ends –
sliding into autumn
with a burst of warmth
Sharing with Poets and Storytellers United at Friday Writings #67, where the prompt is "love letters to wild flowers". I had in mind garden flowers in this piece, but still ...
Nothing happened today.
I did the washing. I read
the most beautiful book.
I cuddled a lot with my cat.
Marian phoned. We had
one of our long talks.
The rain cleared. I was happy.
The book I just finished says:
‘the waves roll toward us …
endlessly, as they will for all time.’
A comforting thought in the face of
our collective doom – that something
would go on unchanged. (May it be so!)
Some online friendships end suddenly
without explanation. On social media
families post the sa news of their deaths
and tell us how much we were all appreciated.
Lonely poet bloggers, though, just disappear.
She knows my love
in my care for her needs
and feels it in my touch –
this is her simple happiness
my small cat.
He’s still enraged
at the silence of our media
on climate catastrophe —
not yet in the despair
that becomes acceptance.
Morning with a friend
talking poetry. Sharing
scrambled eggs for lunch.
Later, reading wise words
on happiness — as if I needed them.
There are things you lose
things you mislay —
and some which disappear
mysteriously ‘into thin air’
against all reason. The fairies?
Beating the rainstorm —
a few big splashy drops
when I arrive, thinking
I didn’t quite time it right.
Then ferocity, once I’m safe in.
Evening cools down.
Birds chirp in gardens
and walk nature strips.
Where did they go
in the long hours of heat?
‘How can you bear to do
all that writing?’ she said.
Ah! she’s an academic
who must walk between strict fences.
I make poems, which is play.
The creepers are putting out fine tendrils, seeking new places to spread.
After the hot day, evening greys gently: a gradual deepening.
this old rose
growing no more flowers
still keeps on
extending long branches
and putting forth new leaves
She sends me photos from the island,
lovely sharp images clear in the cold:
hilly, red-roofed towns under mountains.
And I’m almost homesick — but not
for that cold air; though, looking, I taste it.
A friend arrives at my door who has many reasons to be sad.
Her bright red T-shirt sports a lightning bolt and the word ‘Shazam!’
She’s tired, she confides, but she smiles big and keeps on choosing life.
to something I’d love to attend
but I’m too far away —
ignoring how often I’ve told him this.
Too frustrating! I unfriend.
‘Happy Birthday!’ I say
to each of three friends
(who don’t know each other,
nor that they share this date)
taking a moment
and more than a moment
to think of the other:
Andrew … ten years dead.
Remember walking our little boys
in Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens?
First in prams, later running about.
We brought them all the way on trains
from our different suburbs, not at all
noticing that we were intrepid.
In my senior years,
do I race to catch up
with dreams and ambitions
not yet accomplished? No –
with all the many books
I’ve still to read … and re-read.
the easiest, yet
most difficult form to write —
haiku (this isn’t)
*
the secret
under my plain dark sarong —
bright pink panties
