Category Archives: Poetry

Grief Before Grief

Here death is a vulture:devours face and memory,claws at carrion, feeds on fullnesslike life was flesh,fit for the taking.But life is a millionintangible moments, alldazzling and passingin Eden-sunk griefand Life won’t go silently,fighting reduction,while Death – old materialist -denies Life ever was.We have seen it, and held it.We bear its witness.We stroke its unresponsive handandContinue reading “Grief Before Grief”

Pancake Tuesday

Normally a Saturday ritual, it seemedwe should mark this day with pancakes too,a breakfast-table recollection of how feasting and fasting so often cohere. Even, I thought as I mixed egg and milk the night before, even mark the way that air fills the batter like pockets of life, as these very ordinary, meager elements ofContinue reading “Pancake Tuesday”

Birdsville, Werribee

This morning a bird I could not name spanned a sun I could not tame and on the road the dazzled day turned and turned its winding way. Through chicanes, past milkbars ran the path to work, the time to plan, but I was struck by birds in view on Kookaburra Avenue. And God I’mContinue reading “Birdsville, Werribee”

Ordinary Time

Meanwhile, pluck tomatoesripe from the garden.Watch the quinces shed their fur,turn late-summer-yellow,and burst with promise whilecockatoos eye them off.Check the peaches.See the opening flowers on the lemon tree.Cut the roses, deck the table.Water, plant and wait.Number days and count the joysand trust that tears shall cease.