I am the watcher
the runner
unofficial custodian
alone
non-partisan
my feet pray
to mother earth
my breath
synthesises
salt-sea molecules
of sky
and my eyes
monitor
the ways
in sweeping surveil
from mountain
to ocean
and over there
the horizon
mine not mine
owned only
in a global
internal
knowing
tread the land
stomp the sand
it’s yours, ours, no one’s
take care
Photo: Claire Doble
scaggy bits of behind-fences
scan past, scad by
on the side of the train track
and I see the torso of
a dead deer or kangaroo that had
too many ribs too close together
and some of the skin was still there
my unuttered scream
is trapped somewhere in my chest
or at the base of my neck
an anxious vapour, a cloying veil
I am so afraid I can’t cut through
and share the poignancy of the world
beside the railway or
the pink clouds over the ocean
that are the colour of a ribbon for a girl
a pink ribbon that would show a spatter of blood
bright red at first then fading to brown,
rusty like dirt like old wounds like
dusk of the golden hour like
Sunday on the shortest day of the year
as evening closes down like
unshed tears, a stain
somewhere near my heart
a red-brown patch that
will never be washed away
do you know this feeling. Do you? Do you
do you unweep, unscream
and hold that feeling, yes that one
in your body
on a train?
Photo by Emile Guillemot on Unsplash
Evidently the sea
has taken away the sand
leaving rocks where
before it was dunes
and my shifting day
stole away an idea
beauty shimmered, lost and
never wrote it down
one request got through
(and first thoughts
are not best regarded
– even angels fear to tread on broken beaches)
besides, I have poems to write
Photo by Jan Kahánek on Unsplash
hold the wind in my arms
ghost trees toss
their shrouds of
pale cloth
while wave-feathers trail
white-peacock fringes
behind surges
irreparable
over rocks
as my tin-can heart
soaks up
songs from
half-forgotten harmonicas
I’m poised
a broken-bevel jewel
seeking kintsugi
to gild old scars
kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with strands of gold lacquer
Photo: Claire Doble
I learnt permanence from the beach
the way the sand never shifted
and the dunes stood still
a dead spike-backed fish
forever there, the arcs of tides
ancient and fixed
I learnt love from the sea
constant, predictable
ever reliable
turn your back, nothing happens
risk free
and the rocks, so orderly
I learnt life from the wind
always that solid blue
careful, unchanged
no cloud-claw wisps
nor breeze-tossed leaf
to mar my view
gulp that salt-chunk air
sob
tear hair, wild green grass
ragged
sky-tossed waves
brine, not mine
nowhere
buzz on rocks
flies,
sandgravel-spray
ozone
flotsam
angry brain
fierce tide
floatswirl
relentless awake
remember emerald grass
and the hot sky zinging
above a field laid out
to the left of a train line
a cloth unfurled
that curls to a valley
steep-walled with bergs
feels like the bluegreen ocean
in that it’s hard to know
whether the strongest desire
is to be in it, or observe
back once again
emotions shot through with
brine-cool air from outside
the world full of birds
and vines across the window
like it’s been a hundred years
The night air is full of the sea
and it pours, thick
through the kitchen flyscreen
as poignant-melancholy music
rises to meet it like a wave
and I contemplate never drinking again
Watch Greta Thunberg on TV
fist-bump Obama and then
make an impassioned plea
her hair grown to Rapunzel length
that means
it’s been at least a year, please let her win
As the rain falls helpless, heavy here
in parched fields beyond
farmers cry drought-tears
and I see broken, unfixed water pipes
beside the train line I’m overwhelmed
by how little we care
Image: Pacifica Australis #3 – Tiger Nautilus Shell by Christopher Diaz (sculptures at Killalea). Photo: Claire Doble
these waves
stacked like trays
in the corner of Vinnes
a mess of levels
all over the place
and whoever said
liquid is flat
a plane of rock
like a jewellery box
glory spots, lots of treasure pools
the smooth grace of sea
draws up her skirt
gathers into a bastion
of Prussian blue and
as wind stipples the topfoam
back in a cockatoo crest
and the rest
tips forward
crashes on and over
those uneven shelves, the
cutlery drawer
of my coastal shore.
elephant-hide stone, I hop
from plane to plane and feel
brave
like the water could
engulf me
at any stage but of course
I’m safe
not near enough the edge
prefer to watch
put my mind
in the boiling blueturquoisewhite
cauldron and thrill
to the thought of
how I’d die, cold and afraid
while a cormorant
slips oilsmooth
quicksilver, alive in the place
that would surely be
my grave
Photo: Claire Doble
Finally recorded one!
Link: https://soundcloud.com/user-808707280/these-waves
If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door
life flowing cleargreenblue at the bottom of oyster-encrusted steps
clean water, the salt tang, the ripple against stone, how the light strikes
a big sky over a railroad track and the way beer disappears with the sunset
aching sweet, being drunk feels like love
we twist our affections around a glass and tip whiskey in the crevices love has eroded and cut
sluicing the jagged bits, juicing over hurt
the intense blue sky, blue like plastic, a blue dome, a blue tarpaulin from the 80s, blue like sky, a perfect cloudbroken blue over a back lane in Adelaide
ground tinted rust-red from bore water, the world’s blood and corrugated iron in the sun smells like dirt
your eyes like a tannin creek, running smooth and alive with the promise
if I pour myself full of wine from the grapes of the sky, salted from the sea, grown against wire fences in a red-brown earth
if I lie down with you and join our mouths our rivers our waves
will I be granted love
or does it just feel that way
I took the first line of this from Women Who Run With The Wolves by Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes.
Photo: Claire Doble
