Being a neighbour is fraught at any time, but in a time when suburbs, states and families are being isolated from one another, it is even harder. As an Australian, being part of an island nation has much impact on how we view our own place in the world, and in this time of remindingContinue reading “And who is my neighbour? Part 3”
Category Archives: Devotional
In Our Father’s House
I wrote this poem yesterday for the third installment in a series of videos about being a neighbour. As I wrote, I was contemplating the prospect of my Melbourne suburb being the next to go into lockdown. Little did I know that today the whole city would be put back into lockdown. So I’m postingContinue reading “In Our Father’s House”
Werribee Dragonfruit
Strange to be flourishing so far afield;its home is equatorial, tropical,not here, among suburban paddocks,with a straight line down to Antarctica.Yet, while silver birch weepsand quince decks boggy ground with its midwinter yellow,this Malaysian friend greets me withloud, audacious pink,asserting its brilliant right to exist,here, far from home:fruitless, pointless,its only purpose to be,to glory, andContinue reading “Werribee Dragonfruit”
Mary Martha
Can I sitattentive to the voice of many waters and yet move, serve, respond?Can I act,responsive to a world of burning rubble and yet listen, stop and breathe?Full of many things, I forgetto choose the better part.Caught in mindless bustle, I catcheternity in the friction that grindsto a hault.O bless the failurethat drives me kneeward.BlessContinue reading “Mary Martha”
Face-to-face: After Emmanuel Levinas
My brother’s face is not my face;His eyes see things mine do not see,And when I try to take his placeI’m stuck in his alterity.I do not know what he has known.I do not think his thoughts with him.His father is my father. ThoughHe is not me, he is my kin.Each other face I dailyContinue reading “Face-to-face: After Emmanuel Levinas”
Pruning
Against expectation, thisSpartan clipping makes spring flourish more,this cutting back to bones,to bare knobbly knuckles makesgrowth more abundant when it comes.And so we bearthe naked cruelty of these bare days,knowingagainst all experience,trusting againstbarren winter feeling,enduring againstthe buckling in our bones that wants to fall.
Bone Winter
Reduced to its skeleton, the treeremembers days of birds in bowers,leaves atwitter,branches bent with the weight of fruit,and now bent with the wait of dayswhen flourishing’s a memory.But still the soil nurtures.Still the roots draw deep and branchesin their stasis grow in strength.Still rosehips bud where flowers didand the eagle,grace in his pinions,takes twigs andContinue reading “Bone Winter”
And who is my neighbour?
Love, sensing Self flex muscles,Circumvents the question, takes a detourAlong a Jericho road,A thoroughfare often taken, seldom observed.Love stretches the story out,Beyond expectation, beyond our trust,Defeats its stock of righteous men,Then surprises with a foe.Love befriends the enemy,Gives face and heart to the hated one.Love helps us up the donkey’s back,Carries us safe, far fromContinue reading “And who is my neighbour?”
The Long Ordinary
Winter sets in,rubs his damp feet all through the laundry,wipes his everwet hair with each handtowel,breathes ice on my windscreen,cries soggy complaints on my feet.And somewhere we are lostbetween fire and candle, lostin the long, slow ordinary that yawnsin between.Days blink; you miss the momentof daylight, the chanceto dry out and be.Only blessingspans the gapContinue reading “The Long Ordinary”
Psalm (from “Les Feuilles Mortes”)
It can be hard to capture emptiness with words, but often that is the primary emotion that I bring to my poems. This poem is a prayer that I wrote originally as the final part of a sequence of poems inspired by John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme”. The final track of that album is soContinue reading “Psalm (from “Les Feuilles Mortes”)”
The Consolations of Writing 