THE SCAR

The old church was a wreck,

just bush timbers

and lime washed bags

with a few sheets of iron on the roof.

 

The only person

we ever saw there

was a drunk

with delirium tremens.

 

Karaknya and I

went there one day,

cut a mark on our thighs

with some broken bottle,

exchanged blood

and rubbed in red desert dust

up above where it would be seen –

our secret.

 

The mark has faded

over the years

but is still there.

 

Our lives

took us different ways,

to different places

and we lost each other.

 

I had always meant

to renew the friendship

some day – sometime,

but somehow never did,

even after I found where Karaknya was.

 

Perhaps I was afraid of what I might find

or just unwilling to take the risk.

 

Whatever,

Karaknya has gone now.

Just the scar

and the memory

remain.

From my window at St Andrews Hospital - August 2020

 

MY LITTLE SISTER

My little sister, my twin,

You were beautiful they say,

perfect, but dead, still-born,

strangled by my navel string.

 

My mother grieved for you

all her life,

never knowing where you were;

perhaps a hospital incinerator,

perhaps an unmarked grave,

perhaps unacknowledged in the foot of a coffin.

They all happened back then.

We have searched but never found you.

 

You are on our parents’ headstone now,

a memory without a name,

but there, a treasured memory.

 

Me?

We have twin grandchildren, 

girl and boy like us,

now young adults.

I take such joy in them

but grieve too

for what we might have known.

 

My little sister, my twin,

You were beautiful they say,

perfect, but dead, still-born,

and all my life

I feel that I have lived for us both.

REMEMBRANCE

We buried an old friend yesterday,

in the midst of virus restrictions.

It was outside,

just a few of us,

around the grave,

rugged up against the winter wind,

each maintaining distance,

no touching,

no handshakes,

no embraces,

just being together

to acknowledge our shared loss

and celebrate a life well lived.

A son, the only child,

had been allowed to cross

a closed state border.

Others could just observe

by live streaming.

When all was done

we lingered awhile

to renew acquaintances

and reminisce,

but then

were moved along

by grave diggers with

a yellow tractor

and a load of earth.

Bare Fig Tree at Laura

Our winter garden at Laura - frost bitten during most nights but glorious, sunny days and (this year) almost weekly rain. There is that exciting sense of bulbs tentatively cracking the frosty crust of the soil before bursting into their profusion of spring beauty.

An avian blessing - New Holland Honey Eater

The first time I saw one

I was walking by the creek,

a mere glimpse

in a path-side shrub –

black and white with a flash of yellow –

there for a moment ...

then gone.

Now it seems

I see them everywhere -

in our garden

or on bush-land walks,

flitting between plants

or hanging from a bloom,

sipping nectar

or devouring some minute insect.

But still

the sense of privilege remains,

an avian blessing,

a glimpse of life –

black and white with a flash of yellow –

there for a moment ...

then gone.