No fog in the morning
Air dry
plants wither

I water the grapevine
hovea blooms

A new petunia has vivid red edges and a deep purple centre
I think I would like to have a sleep in that centre
The edges dance in the wind and I would like to dance again

I am withered by the sear of age
My hair is brittle
Why are white hairs brittle and the red so flexible?

A spider web caught my shoe
so tough I could feel its resistance.

Spider webs are stronger than butterfly wings
yet they say,
who say such things
that a butterfly’s wing can change all air

I don’t believe it
all of my butterflies come from green worms that eat cabbages
How can anything that eats raw cabbage change the world?

The hovea has white blossoms shaped like tiny horns
The moon plant has gone into hiding
The wind is hot and too dry
the yellow blooms reflect the sun

In the north it is snowing


We sat in a circle of strangers
One talked about his knees not kneeling
One talked of wind -stirred hair
One talked of a sister in Holland
Someone told a story about a ball of knitting wool running down the steps
of an amphitheatre
The deaf talk out of their own heads and no one listens
The young have nothing to do
The old have too much to do
He is building a divider

I come to this place once again
directed by the woodling's pointed branch
a place, familiar, but the path
is overgrown and, I must recall
my own footsteps. In childhood
it was easier in the long-lasting snow
of northern winter I could simply place
each overshoe into yesterdays
and reach my goal.
I'll stay close to the carragana

A tree is tradition, reaching far
into our story, for its leaves
have printed shadows on the earth
where we are dreaming. Do dreams
of ancestral loving come alive in
each years birthing? Are thoughts
surviving wintry winds still passing
into the summer shade?
Will you remember, in the blood?
the bone? the tales earth told?
Will the tree spirits whisper
now, as they did then, the pain
and joy of all we are
and all we were? Do we dance
as they do to the rhythm of
the seasons music?

It seemed so necessary to capture
all the stories before those old ones
were forgotten but now that we
are old ourselves I keep wondering
if it is better just to drift down
to the sea where water remembers
nothing and we become part
of the everchanging pattern
without shape or desire to change

We are and have always been
drifting drifting and circling
changing with the entry of newer
ripples and as the circles
intertwine they change direction
but are they yours or mine
are they without place or time
only direction and the current
remain

Filling the Writing Bowl

An empty bowl
an empty house?
I've polished Christmas for another year.
The lists are made
The cake has been eaten
I find myself
staring onto a blank white page
the candle wick has been blackened
the thread of my days loops and twists
and does not know direction
for this is the place
wherein I wait
for messages
and time

We'll walk
and watch the paper clouds
toss
in the blue space
between the words
until chaos
settles once more
and patterns
the new days.