All That Was Needed (For Mary and Martha of Bethany)

Tomorrow is the day the Anglican calendar remembers Mary and Martha, the sisters in Bethany who were close friends of Jesus. But tomorrow is a Sunday so I will have another poem to write then, so they can have their poem today.

All That Was Needed

The hired wailers were doing their work
and though I thought I should be in
the kitchen making food for the guests,
my heart kept me waiting there
by the tomb of our dead brother.

My sister greeted you when you came;
she ran into your arms and said,
Lord, if you had have been here
my brother would not have died.
I thought the same, but I stayed still.

And in the kitchen the dishes stacked up
and food scraps rotted, while inside
the tomb our brother Lazarus, dead,
waited for the day when he
would rise with all the righteous.

You came to me beside the tomb;
Lord, I said, as my sister had done,
if you had have been here – if; what ifs! –
my brother would surely not have died.
But you stood there and silently cried.

The hired wailers did their work;
my soul fell out upon the ground.
And though I thought to pick it up
your weeping eyes told me that I
should leave it lying at your feet.

And by the tomb the righteous one
stood at the mouth and called out loud,
Lazarus, come out of your tomb!
My brother from inside rose up;
my soul saw its new life.

Your feet were still wet-soaked with tears;
my sister’s hair was soaking too.
But on the ground, around your feet,
where Lazarus’ risen feet stepped
were the dewdrops of the new morning.

The Last Friday of July

My friend E., visiting from Kyrgyzstan and doing a day of emergency teaching while here, was chatting to me while I stood in the quadrangle outside the canteen, my duffle coat barely warding off the cold of the day as I did lunchtime yard duty. E. began to express her dislike of the weather; this amused me, given that she had spent much of her time over the past eighteen months in the rugged Central Asian winter of Bishkek. Wasn’t this, I reasoned, better than that? No, she replied; weather in Bishkek is constant, and the wind is less biting. It is easier to adjust to. But, I insisted, there was more poetic inspiration to be had in Melbourne’s constantly changing weather. When I was living in Malaysia, there was much less to write about; I had to find 500 different ways to describe rain and heat. Fine then, she said, write a poem about this. The yard duty? I asked. The whole situation, she said. The grey sky and the icy wind. Alright, I said. I will. And I did – though only loosely speaking. I used the weather as a point of departure, writing the poem in my head as I watched students playing in the quadrangle. Here is my poem.

The Last Friday of July

The game – an exercise in thinly disguised chaos –
Straddles the quadrangle with its puddles and pavers,
Where downball turns momentarily to shuffling
And pony-tails bounce with the aquamarine ball.

The backdrop of sky, though grey, refuses dullness
Against this flurry of movement which dazzles the lunchbreak,
And shirtsleeves, unfettered from those navy blue jumpers,
Seize on this constant movement to defy the icy wind.

Untitled Poem

I came to the garden and sat for a while
to look on the flowers and smell the fresh soil;

the air of my contemplation was still
and the blossoms and petals were silent.

The day was pregnant from seeds of toil
and the earth ready-made for the farmers to till,

sending in momentary gusts its rich scent,
the fragrance of birth and growth for new days;

but there in my mind a vine, wildly coiled,
contracted in blankness with nothing to say,

and so there I sat, and sat, to unbend
my coiled-up heart to curl to a smile.

The skyline was flat but out in the fields
the prince of love shaped a smile from the soil;

and I, in my blankness, stopped there to wait
and threw down my toiling to watch him ascend

the hills beyond eyesight – a sight vast and royal –
and catch my dead striving, caught in his wind.

One Son of Thunder (For James, Apostle and Martyr)

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. And they went on to another village.
(Luke 9:51-56)

He left his nets when the Messiah called;
left behind with his brother John
their father’s gainful fishing trade
and set his eyes towards the road
which these chosen twelve would walk;

And when they went on up the hill
to see His face shine white like fire,
he saw there what others weren’t
and what cherubim must shield
their eyes from now before His throne;

There, perhaps, he caught the flame
that burnt like sun-storm in his spirit,
though the fire was not yet
for him to strike up nor to kindle;
his thunder rumbled in the wind,

a heaving, looming presence, all
the thwarted bursting of potential,
sounding far-off, beyond clouds,
a step behind from all the action,
rumbling, pushing to be heard,

the bluster of half-valid pride
which starts against injustice and yet
sings a song that starts, Why me?
and calls down fiery judgment when
the fire’s time has not yet come.

He did not call down fire when
King Herod’s men came with the sword;
by then he knew what once had fumed
and rumbled in his consciousness:
the truth that made him brave the fire.

The Triumph of Time

TIME: I that please some, try all; both joy and terror
Of good and bad; that makes and unfolds error,
Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
To use my wings.
(William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale)

When Perdita, the shepherdess,
proves to be a fair princess,
we are not at all surprised:
she had such queenly qualities,
we all feel sure as we reflect
upon the past events and how
noble was her rustic life.
How apt! we say as we applaud.

And when Queen Hermione,
her mother who, we all were told,
had died upon her child’s exile,
emerges, risen from the dead,
it seems somehow to fit the tune,
a melody of passing time, with
all the hopeful harmonies
that we have slowly learnt to hear.

And yet Old Time, as he declares
the movement of the seasons and
the death of each and every age,
cannot with his hourglass
nor with his downy, aging wings,
pull together any strand
of fraying life and dying days;
he only can announce.

And so we watch, in captive awe,
to this fall, this other rise,
the hopeful eyes from theatre stalls
of groundlings who can but believe
and cheer with every heave, and swoon
with every faint, rejoice to hear
the news that she who once was dead
has been contrived alive again.

Take your bow, all players, and
join the moving throng as we
hope to heaven that this is
not all just a winter’s tale.
(While the old man in the wings
marks the hours with pensive hands,
the author, hidden as he is
backstage, prepares for encore.)

So winter’s tales turn to spring
and our hearts, alive again,
go with us into the street,
the heavy crowd all bustling,
brushing through the surging joy
which we felt on curtain fall;
and as the sun goes on its way
we flicker faintly like street flames.

Magdala (For the Feast of Mary Magdalene

After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.
– Luke 8:1-3

It was as if a prison had opened
and the crazed in-mates had fled,
taking their violence and hatred out
into the hell they most desired,

leaving me at the open gate,
the sunlight breaking through the veil
of death and prison on my face
for the first time since I’d learnt to breathe,

and it smelt as though all air
that I had before now breathed
had not ever been true air
and all suns before now paled

before the bright gleaming Son
standing by the gate’s swinging door,
ushering me into the fields
that he painted now before me.

Come, my child, he said to me,
and out we walked, the demons gone,
the strong man fleeing for his life,
the clouds no match for this bright Son,

and through death’s dark valley we walked,
we two and the other captives dancing
with us on the road to death and life,
only a cross, a tomb and stone between them,

and them no match for him who slew
the demons with his fiery voice
and opened up the prisons with
the love in the palms of his open hands.

The Shepherd’s Dwelling

Listen –

The shepherd has come,
the true shepherd who
will not lead us down false paths
or beside wild streams
nor through fields of brown;

The shepherd has come,
the shepherd who dwells
among his sheep, who
leads them only in good paths
and gives them rest.

Listen –

He has seen us, sheep without
a shepherd, wandering among
the dead of our flocks and
scourged by the false shepherds;
he has heard our plaintive bleat.

Listen –

The good shepherd lies down
among us; he dwells with us
though he is far bigger than
all fields and pastures
and all days;

Look to the pastures and imagine!
Have you ever heard of such a thing?
Have you in all your bleating
and complaining ever dreamt
of this? The shepherd, ever good,

Always so good – lies down
amongst us and lays down
his life among us, the
shepherd who gives his life
to dwell among his fallen sheep.

Winter’s Child

Winter’s Child

Into this world in bitter cold –
Brother and sister rosy-cheeked
Fresh from playing in the snow,
A luxury, a game to them;

My screams perhaps a little louder
For the blast of Ballarat cold
Upon my newly disclosed flesh,
The summer of my mother gone –

(In this weather there is nothing
To do but huddle.)

Fire blazes as I bathe,
Bucket-clad before the flames,
The water’s warmth a
Room for me.

And so it starts:
A lesson in the way of seasons;
The smile on my face defies
July’s worst needles –

(In this weather there is at least the refuge
Of warmth which comforts like a pulsing heart.)

100 Words for Sleep

An ocean of sound waves in whelming rhythm;
A lounge-room full of inviting chairs;

The lightness of a dumbbell,
The weight of a wafer;

A lullaby,
A symphony;

The distance from inside to
The furthest place away from day;

A tower of the smallest seeds;
A firm and delicate soft thing;

A consuming embrace,
A father’s stern distance;

The slap of a Judas Kiss,
The faithful arms of a brother;

An autocrat denying needs,
A brazen stranger yelling things;

A gift of clouds
From one who loves;

The stillness of a knowing friend.
The open bed of quiet grief.

Ants Around the Basin

These travellers must have come from arid lands,
Drawn as they are to the flood-plains here
Where splashes from ablutions fall
In puddles where these ants may drink.

Tenacious, they hold to their collective purpose;
Though I swipe at them daily with moistened rag,
Their kin replace them unabashed by the evening
Like small settlers firmly set on their obscure mission:

Only, perhaps, a water-hole, sizeable by their dimensions,
A reservoir of soapy excess collecting by the sink,
Or if they, like us, are drawn to this safe place of vanity,
A watery mirror in which to view their plucky selves?

Are they here to bathe in the refuse of our cleanliness?
To scout out the soil by this Terra Nullius basin?
Or are they simply drawn by compulsion, addiction,
To a sweetness found here but known only to them?

Firm in this mission they brave again the straits
And the ceramic hills, withstand the slopes,
The gathering grime, all somehow in aid
Of a place of plenty worth every almost certain death.