Jeffrey Smart painted this dying day: burnt orange in floating smokestack steam, needle-lights stretching in fluorescent dream, the sojourn of light sinking in silent sway. Daytime paints its canopy away and minutes pass in inches as we glean each moment, weigh each instant gram by gram. Apologies buy flowers; much to say, yet time isContinue reading “Northbound at dusk”
Category Archives: Devotional
Homecoming
Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel? (William Shakespeare) To the untrained eye, nothing has changed: smoke still billows from chimneys; mornings are dark; alarms wake too early; the mad prince still fools the diplomat with his madness, the sane with his sanity. To the untrained eye, all these cloudsContinue reading “Homecoming”
Expect Delays
The sky is clear but in the distance clouds gather in manifold metallic tones. The road lies open, save the lane where a car met a day that ruptured its way, crushed its bonnet, its schedule; we mouth our complaints. Red messages warn that soon we too will be disrupted. Slower than usual, noContinue reading “Expect Delays”
Count It Loss
Whether misplaced or stolen, the effect is the same: the search, the panic, the retracing of steps, the sense that not an object but an organ, not a possession but a position, has vanished, without trace. Whether passing or lasting, the search seems boundless. The mind must run to what-ifs because you never know: theContinue reading “Count It Loss”
Music for children’s choir
Headphone-bound, children sing as I round the corner. The nonchalance of late morning traffic greets a flutter of flight – black and white feathers – painting the street in uncontrolled strokes: a rise, a swoop, a leap, a fall. Ballet-graced, yet deadly in its implications: too wild, too close to the turmoil of wheels.Continue reading “Music for children’s choir”
On an enclosure of bees in a honey store
The bee is not afraid of me, I know the butterfly. (Emily Dickinson) Busy as themselves, they bustle in explosion of hum and hive. Contained, less fearsome, they pattern out their piece of wall in splendour of black and Emperor’s yellow. Intricate weaving, a tight-packed fabric of sweetness and protection, this is nothing to startleContinue reading “On an enclosure of bees in a honey store”
10 Ways to Embrace the Ring Road
Embrace it. No other time of day can you sit still, without compunction. Here schedules mean nothing. You may be late; that cannot be stopped. Yet you can stop. You can look at clumps of grass and broccoli gums in wetlands and wonder how they looked before this road was even thought. You can watchContinue reading “10 Ways to Embrace the Ring Road”
Redeem the Commute
Keilor-bound at the wheel, a man plucks his middle brow over the hill. Trucks speak in whistling brakes; cars speak in blinkers; billboards speak in covered-up breaths and we, doubting ourselves, tremble forth. Across gorges and bridges, organ-pipes hum in the silent chorale of a wasted commute. Gold glints through gum-trees; grace glints in mirrors.Continue reading “Redeem the Commute”
Doxa
White though simple carries every colour. Glory – small word – is manifold. Break apart light and find prismatic wonder. None of this has words. What then? What sounds can be made to stir hearts? The Word – singular yet many pleats, Many rooms – beams and breathes from beginning. How can we reveal? WeContinue reading “Doxa”
The Long Drizzle
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote, The droghte of March hath perced to the roote… (Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales) Finally the clothes are dry, the air is dry, the leaves fall in their way. Finally April ends with such crispness and we emerge, knowledge of winter on the edges of skin yet our bodiesContinue reading “The Long Drizzle”
The Consolations of Writing 