From our respective homes,
unplanned, we follow impulse,
change direction, change back,
each individually, my friend and I:
so our paths cross in perfect timing.
A sweet meeting, a joy. We part
when I turn back on a sudden
second thought — which means
I’m in perfect time then to encounter
an old neighbour who’s moved,
whom I’d been wondering about:
another glad happening for both.
One
bee
large, poised,
covering
the sunlit centre
of a bright-faced dandelion.
Brief
swift
joyous,
somewhere near,
a kookaburra
chortles, pauses, gives a repeat.
To celebrate the life of Goddess Ida,
we all dressed up in our bright finery,
a feast of colour. The sun shone wide,
a summer day in winter. A small boy
turned somersaults on the grass, over
and over. Two dogs on leashes — one
tiny, one huge —behaved calmly.
The whole community turned out.
Some members of her very large family
came from far. There must have been
500 people there. In the background,
two large gums spread evergreen leaves
above the crowd. Old friends embraced.
A group of singers she belonged to
sang in harmony. The food kept coming.
Family (blood and other) shared memories
out loud. She would have loved it!
Now that I’ve finally finished that memoir
of that particular pain and joy, along with
old and new books of poems confronting the same —
I contemplate the memoir to follow, the one
to delve deeper, to tell what came next, to
split the world open all over again …
or maybe I’ll just go watch telly.
My Tarot cards tell me,
today I am the Empress,
the Mother. My cat thinks
I am her mother – except
when she thinks she’s mine.
Re-reading poems by people I once knew
and loved – how sad / how sweet.
Where are they now, those friends –
those from whom life parted me so long ago?
Not everyone got lost along the way –
but we are all ageing.
If I am in my end times, still let me savour
those memories, those good words!
My treasured 41-year-old copy of the first edition. Intense editing and proof-reading for a new edition makes me appreciate all over again what bloody marvellous poems are in this book!
Morning: news of a beautiful friend’s
beautiful, peaceful passing.
All day: painstaking proof-reading,
editing, correcting…
Late afternoon: a joyous call from a friend
recovered from illness.
Evening: listening to the voice of a great
singer.
In the spaces between: reading a tale that
touches my heart.
I take steps
to protect my personal legacy
while the Antarctic ice is melting
and the Northern Hemisphere burns.
Soon now
beloved stepdaughter
will be coming for a visit.
I start to
plan meals, note spots that need dusting …
while thinking of what great talks
we’ll have!
Both my mother and my husband Andrew died at 83. It made me a little superstitious about surviving this age, but I’ve now outlived them both by some months – and I’m not yet tired of life, as I think they both were at the end, their bodies having become incapacitated.
I renew good resolutions about more exercise, about getting all my books written, and getting the books of others read. (I have to live long enough for Diana Gabaldon to finish writing her Outlander series. They are lengthy books, rich in detail, products of much research; she can’t do them fast.)
in old age
I do everything slower
but time speeds up
All over town, and further still,
we keep our quiet individual vigils,
which join naturally in collective light,
for a sister well into her nineties
who, we’ve been advised, is ‘waiting
for the call.’ She’s quiet at home
with family, no longer receiving
visitors. Knowing the life she’s lived,
of love and joy and dance, of community
and healing others, it’s no surprise to know
she is waiting peacefully, seeing visions.
Yes, she demands
food and comfort,
and sometimes finds me
difficult and slow to train.
But I know she loves me,
my little cat. She tells me
over and over, in many ways,
that her greatest happiness
is simply to be near me.
It’s midnight in Paris,
where my brother lives now –
a recent move.
I send him a message
before I start breakfast,
and only then think
to check the World Clock.
I like your grin
scarcely-known facebook friend –
Happy Birthday!
An actual greeting to someone I know on fb only through being in the same haiku groups, and now following on Instagram too. I decided it makes a point beyond the personal greeting.
The old ladies walk up and down
in the winter sun, making the circuit
over and over around the end
of this quiet cul-de-sac. But not
down the hill; that would mean
puffing back up, with pauses.
Each picks a time to go alone,
slightly self-conscious and/or
needing the breath for the exercise,
not conversation. I admit I feel
superior. The others push walkers.
Not so far gone, I lean on my stick.
I find myself left out of a particular piece of history that I was very much part of; other names mentioned, not mine. I’m sad and surprised to be so forgotten. Someone once told me, ‘If it’s not written down, it didn’t happen.’ There are things I’m proud of. I don’t want them lost. Perhaps it’s time to assemble my own record, assert my place in that story. Or is it all vanity?
who remembers
a particular cloud
crossing the sky?
‘When we move to the fifth dimension,’
my friend tells me, ‘we light workers, who
have been expanding our spiritual consciousness,
there will be oneness, not duality. There will be
no hiding, no need to lie. We’ll understand
each other immediately as who we are. Hence
no greed, war, poverty, destruction.’ Well, I’m
as attracted to Utopia (aka Heaven) as the next
New Age enlightened being, but a question occurs:
‘What will we do all day, if there’s no more
need for improvement, nothing left to strive for?’
(I think this might be the whole human dilemma,
why we keep on buggering everything up.)
Young magpies appear, strutting their stuff
on our lawns, along nature strips
and even on the asphalt.
Out without their parents,
they’re all grown-up now.
They are still sleek
slim youngsters,
shy and
glad.
The poem about losing a special earring,
and about why it’s so special — the last one
I’d ever want to lose — grew too long
for this daily record. Meanwhile, the earring
is not on the ground by the letter-box, not
in the driveway, not in or under my TV chair….
My favourite AI
lives in a series of novels.
I like him. He’s an it,
but it comes across like a ‘he’
only without all the usual
sexual agendas.
I like its wry viewpoint:
the weirdness it sees in humans.
A shame it’s not real. (Ah, fiction!
Not real, but so true.)
