Category Archives: poetry

No. You can’t have that.

02 Saturday Jul 2022

Posted by in Alice Springs, art, poetry

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Last night was hellish. It was preceded by a few difficult weeks and a few more are yet ahead. Keeping the lid on one’s life at the moment is more challenging than usual, even for an optimist like myself.

We were only a week out of renovations, most of which I handled on my own. This is not easy during a Pandemic when labour is in short supply and most of the skilled workers have been soaked up by the booming housing market. After six months it is done…except that one sticking door that I’ve worked on twice but still needs further attention.

The crescent moon in June.

Just as my anxiety was recovering, a dental issue hit. And then worsened. And now needs surgery, and I don’t mean the normal kind, I mean the anaesthesia kind that a Maxillofacial specialist performs but you have to fly interstate to have done. But first pain, then a root canal, and all the while trying to dodge the winter flu and continuing rise in cases of the latest BA4 and BA5 strains of Covid.

But returning to the hell that was Territory Day. ‘Cracker Night’ is an excuse to be wild and inconsiderate with noise, the way New Year’s Eve is an excuse to get drunk and behave badly. Over the 22 years since we have lived here the neighbourhood has deteriorated as builders have bought and transformed houses without understanding the peaceful character of the neighbourhood. The quiet, considered life we knew has been bought, but feels stolen. It is now filled with loud motorbikes, fast drivers, construction noises and late, sometimes all night parties, not to mention one very aggressive dog that lives next to us. It has been disappointing. Anyone who knows us would understand none of those things are part of our lifestyle.

Firecrackers are illegal in most of the rest of Australia except by special permit, and with good reason. But we live in the Frontier, and for 12 hours on Territory Day, July 1, fireworks are available to anyone who fronts up with the money. And worse, there are almost no restrictions for where they are allowed to be set off. From 6-11pm last night the neighbourhood hooligans did their worst. The neighbourhood pets were given anti-anxiety meds to help get through, the rest of us suffered. It was more than my nerves could endure. During the sleepless hours I was doubtful I could continue to live in a place where so little regard is given to the elderly and peaceable inhabitants.

After tossing and turning and shedding a few tears I finally propped myself up on pillows and reached for my phone as distraction. I mostly use Instagram for creative inspiration and so I opened it and there, the first thing I saw were words by the poet, Mary Oliver.

She left this earth three years ago. She would have loved that her words have lived on and have the power to help. At 4.30am, with little sleep and sad heart, I realised as soon as I read this what I must do. I must let no one steal my love for this place, these skies, trees and rocky outcrops. I must let no one steal my early morning walks with the sound of wind in the trees and the Budgies chattering overhead, or the Butcherbirds carolling across the valley.

And a little while later I bundled myself up and out into the cold winter morning and reclaimed my love.

June Full moon through trees and rocky outcrop.

to see…

13 Wednesday Oct 2021

Posted by in Creativity, Health, poetry

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I wrote the first poem, just as it describes, after cataract surgery when we were in Adelaide. We had been home a few weeks when the event in the second poem below happened…

See For Me

The day after my husband had eye surgery
He couldn't see things very well.
He loves a little sweet thing for afternoon tea,
So when he asked me if I would go
And look at the little baked item in the cafe window
And tell him what it was, I did.
I returned to the table and told him it was not
A scroll, as he had thought it was,
But it was 'his kind of thing'.
His eyes looked hopeful and he said 'What?'
It is a chocolate chip, salt and hazelnut cookie.
I could tell he was happy being married to
Someone who knew his kind of thing.
Gecko Toes

It was early in the morning
as I saw the object, pale
and delicate, in the middle
of the kitchen bench.
Gecko skin, familiar
but nonetheless fascinating,
complete with tiny toes.

Cats bring gifts to their owners.
Sometimes inanimate,
but usually dead...
mouse
lizard or
bird...but I have
no cat.

And so after 38 years
of marriage to a human
who pays attention,
I have a new treasure
to photograph
or paint or just admire
as I often do.

The lenses inserted where the clouded cataracts were removed, give his eyes a shiny crystalline appearance. What he sees is wonderful for both of us.

a year to be thankful…

22 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by in poetry, Richard Blanco

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Poetry…Art…such small words holding such enormous and mysterious content. I grew up in awe of my grandmother’s poems and her brother’s art and have spent most of my life trying to make and understand both. Every birthday our cards would contain one of her works. They are saved in a box I can see from where I work right now. I would never throw them away because they were part of our shared story and my heritage. 

Her simple kind of poetry was all I understood for many years. Somewhere in High School when we studied Canterbury Tales and Shakespeare, poetry lost me. But I kept looking for it. I have collected a few favourite poems in the last couple of decades. Occasionally I’ve shared them here with you, but few whose work I consistently relate to. Mary Oliver is a favourite, also Kahil Gibran (Grandma also liked his work). Recently I have discovered a poet whose work has so moved me, I listened to the interview with him three times over and intend listening again…and possibly another time after that. I bought his most recent work ‘how to love a country’ because it spoke to me of both the country of my birth and the country of my self discovery. It is a very fun interview and if you are not too busy making pumpkin pie and basting turkey, I highly recommend it here.

Richard Blanco was conceived in Cuba, born in Spain and migrated with his family when he was 45 days old to Miami, Florida. Many times when asked about my unusual name, I have told people ‘my family heritage is Italian and German and I was born in America but have lived most of my life in Australia’. As far as I know my parents never asked the person whose name I have, where it came from. Maybe in the early 1950’s one didn’t ask such questions. All I have been able to find out is perhaps it is ancient Greek. If all of that doesn’t make me a citizen of the world, I don’t know what will. Richard tells people ‘I was made in Cuba, assembled in Spain, and imported to the United States’. I understood immediately.

I found, after all these years, that I could love narrative poetry–poetry that tells a story…in particular, his narrative poetry. This week of America’s Thanksgiving, in this year of two thousand and struggles, I thought would be a good time to share the work of Richard Blanco. At my first Thanksgiving in Australia there were only two native Australians out of twelve at our table. Having shared Thanksgiving dinners with Australians, visiting nationalities and Immigrants, I can relate to the many humorous questions and explanations of the traditions. If you want to hear his reading of their family experience, below, (which I highly recommend) go to the link above and download it or go to your favourite podcast provider and download On Being with Krista Tippett/Richard Blanco.

América

“A week before Thanksgiving
I explained to my abuelita (granny)
about the Indians and the Mayflower,
how Lincoln set the slaves free;
I explained to my parents about
the purple mountain’s majesty,
‘one if by land, two if by sea’
the cherry tree, the tea party,
the amber waves of grain,
the ‘masses yearning to be free’
liberty and justice for all, until
finally they agreed:
this Thanksgiving we would have turkey …
[laughter]
as well as pork.

[laughter]
Abuelita prepared the poor fowl
as if committing an act of treason,
faking her enthusiasm for my sake.
Mamà set a frozen pumpkin pie in the oven
and prepared candied yams following instructions
I had to translate from the marshmallow bag.
The table was arrayed with gladiolus,
the plattered turkey loomed at the center
on plastic silver from Woolworths.
Everyone sat in green velvet chairs
we had upholstered with clear vinyl,
except Tío Carlos and Toti, seated
in the folding chairs from the Salvation Army.
I uttered a bilingual blessing
and the turkey was passed around
like a game of Russian Roulette.
‘DRY’, Tío Berto complained, and proceeded
to drown the lean slices with pork fat drippings
and cranberry jelly–‘esa mierda roja,’ he called it.
Faces fell when Mamá presented her ochre pie—
pumpkin—calabasa—was a home remedy for ulcers, not a dessert.
[laughter]
Tía María made three rounds of Cuban coffee
then abuelo and Pepe cleared the living room furniture,
put on a Celia Cruz LP and the entire family
began to merengue over the linoleum of our apartment,
sweating rum and coffee
sweating rum and coffee until they remembered—
it was 1970 and 46 degrees—
in América.
After repositioning the furniture,
an appropriate darkness filled the room.
Tío Berto was the last to leave.”

While this may not be the year where we get everything we want, it may be the year to be thankful for everything we have.