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
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
bushfire smoke
sits in pits
of lungs flown
far away
the fight
still fluttering
ragged
animal fear
resides
human organs
overlaid
by today’s
hotgreen grass-smell
of primary school T-ball
in Lynden Park
can’t tell sometimes
sweat from tears from dew from bore water from
precious reservoir
can it be spared?
Saved?
Me? I am free
on knees
taller than trees:
to all of thee
Christmas merry x
Photo: Claire Doble
There is a heart-place
Of mangroves and oyster rocks
Sei Shonagon, Megan Willcox
Soft, quiet hollows of sand, like the scoops of a hip
A headland, like Scotland
All green and black
Where the sea rushes in
And sucks right back
Is a Beowulf Boudicca
Lurking deep
Below slimy kelp
dry salt smell in the heat
I’m afraid
If I go…
It might…
Disappear
Will it flip, mind twisting, turning, running, burning
Tunnel clear
Back here?
A forest path
Gravel and soft brown
Pineneedles where a
Russian scarf
Drapes, disintegrating down
A secret house
Forest sprites,
Where?
Do they come out at night?
Another heart-place for me
On the other side, through the trees
Today’s prompt/challenge was to write a Sei Shonagon-style list of “things.” What things? Well, that’s for you to decide! I remembered a work colleague and how we were so into Sei Shonagon for a while. Then I thought of faraway places in the heart that make it beat faster. The place I often thought of as a refuge/ happy place is where I’m soon going to be moving to. So I’m wondering if I’ll have to invert that once I get there, and imagine myself back in Switzerland instead!
Photo: Claire Doble
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