Going Home

Generations gather, tartan

covered caskets,

family, memories, tears

sixty years departed

arrival

through the harbour

boat now drifts

toward home.

 

Deep sea, sunless sky

dark celebration, heritage, home, heart

four daughters line the deck

ashes, reflections

merge deep

behold a great ball

aqua light

below dark surface

 

Transfixed wonder

ashes glow in suspended unity.

two tiny feathers

float white

against black birdless sky.

Harry Lauder sings:

will ye stop y’re tickling Jock

we watch and weep and laugh.

 

 

 

 

Half Moon Bay

Half Moon Bay

Firm sand

stepping softly

footprints snatched

sun spangled sea

beckons

beyond

 

Crabs create

bleached

dot paintings

claws scuttle down dark holes

glass bodied jellyfish

stranded

Grit clings

shells dry

seagulls cry

fish die

plastic passes

beyond

 

Beyond grey horizon

warm clouds blanket

grey sea

dark islands beckon

beyond

            beyond

                         beyond

No Regrets

Upon youth’s ignorance

we amassed mistakes

and yet


You reached misunderstood,

rejected, recoiled

and yet


I reached misunderstood,

rejected, recoiled

and yet


We danced our roles

circling, sidestepping, tangibly twirling

children grew

and yet


Playing our roles

circling, pirouetting, painfully parting

grandchildren grew

and yet


And yet

the riches known

the way we’ve grown

upon mistakes of youth

no regrets

and yet

Accordion Man

The music swells and fills

the room

and fills the void

betwixt

what might have been.

 

Are you dreaming Accordion man?

of lyrics from home

and friends

ideals of youth

depleting on alien shore

where loud people

bewilder

strangers to your ways.



Play on Accordion Man.

 

Are you happy accordion man?

relinquishing

youth’s yardstick

surrendering, striving  

against poverty’s scar

foreign daughters

growing

oblivious.




Play on Accordion Man.

The music swells and fills

my heart

and fills the void

betwixt

what might have been.

 

Homes

Mangrove river tangled

crabby life scuttling

dark homes in greasy mud

egret stands silent

sentry in crocodile shadows

two moons on rippled water

                                    concentric illusions

                                    of home.

 

Yet chalky lighthouse beckons

Firth of Clyde flickers

womb-entangled country

welcomes with uncanny ease

molecules mesh in ambivalent blood

music, mountains, companions connect

memories in purple heather

home

 

Echoes of childhood

rain on weatherboard

nostalgic hens scatter

nectarine tree shades

cubbies in cicada-throbbing bush

fill empty careless days

migrant parents claw

from alien soil

home

 

Through albums roam

lives in warm embers

illuminated mud walls

guinea fowl panicked by pronking alpacas

take fright and flight

to the Morten Bay Fig

Grandpa’s ashes buried beneath

warm earth tear-stained

bruised river flows

through rock unbroken

home.

 

 

On Indian Ocean

black swan lullaby

laps the soul

through peppermint trees

I carry suitcase, my cup of tea

unpack family, friends,

new grandson

ravels my heart in milky hands

waves on blood red sands

sun sinks below western sea

home.

 

Astride salt pan desert

salt tears flow

pale spinifex points

to eastern forests

clouds feed furious waters

mosquitos

             mud

                    mould  

two moons reflect

mangrove river

calls me

home.