Nadi Market

Women weaving
sitting together on bare earth
in the market
Their long feet hold the yellow ends
of rushes
Baskets grow
in swift hands

I squatted beside them
leaving my friend
to bargain further down the lane

Content here adding my chatter
I wish that I could stay
They talk of children
of next day
of washing
and of gathering the long
pandunas leaves-a task for boys


Mother talk
They shake their heads
A pretty niece comes by and speaks
to me of yesterday when coming off the plane
she'd been chewing gum
wearing the tightest jeans
Today she's wearing a chandan
her brown toes curling over clay
I am included
among her many aunts

She tells of our brief encounter
adds another dimension
to my feeling for these women-sellers and makers
broad hipped planted on native soil
Women who know who they are
can give
welcome and comfort

A mother among mothers
I want to stay
and promise to return

Island Boat Stop


A basket for mundane uses
I do not see its maker’s hands
but buy it from women
who neither smile nor weave

These women
sell trinkets to tourists
who come to stare at poverty
and go home feeling the strength
of masters

Children on this island
play at being children
but look at us
as old men do
without innocence


Frances Sbrocchi

On a son’s birthday

I read and read and sleep and read again
the words fly past
sometimes I forget the page I turned just ten minutes ago.

I write and the words slip away
my hand no longer holds a pen
or memory

I wander and my feet
no longer find the old path
where poplars dropped their leaves

I think, I try to think
about the day you were born
but that too fades

My son, I remember that you were born
out of my body
and a long time ago

Today I try to remember
what that birthing
made me feel

Today long days of memory
see you as you are now
not then

And the days of your aging
intercept
my memory

With David and Jim
in the bush


They tell me to step carefully
These flowers are very tiny
a donkey orchid with tall ears
grandmother’s bonnet
bacon and eggs
kangaroo paw
cat’s paw
old lace
and smoke bush
common earthly names
for exquisite jewels

One tiny round of green
on green
is a trap
What living thing
can be so small
to be caught
in these jaws?

Bottle brush
and peppermint
A yellow wattle
hides a hundred bees
and a hundred scents
gather into
one perfume

The grey owl
sullen
sulks
in shadow
waiting
his turn
and moonlight

A fragile world
too delicate
yet found
here in the city
by a cemetery.

Mayne Island


The sea grey and still,
as the wind ceased the heron waited
his dark eye ready for the silver flash
I watched the swift ending
from where the dark log sheltered me

I began to move, clamboring over ancient rocks
and twisted timbers
white timbers bleached by summer sun
and winter tide.There were ropes of dank weed
writhing on the sand, and tracks
of some small animal I didn’t not know
and darkened holes.

No sun
no cloud
All those once live pieces lay
leaving no shadow
nor did I as I moved.
Even the tide retreated
And I, alien
moving out of time
and space

I marked the place
and left

Once in a month of roses
I walked alone
I came to a tall stone wall
and wondered how I could go on
I came to an opening
an unlocked gate
entered the secret place
a land of swift streams
tall ancient trees
and pathways strewn with memory
where I found soft-spoken strangers
who welcomed me
showed me through their country
a language
a voice
a word to take home forever