Thursday 21 November 2019

Non-renewable: A Poem

do not put your faith in falsenesses
in those renewables that are not renewed 
through death birth and unfolding life 
but through the uprooting of earth’s bones
blood flesh and guts the very heart of 
things that will stop beating stop being
even when the sun keeps shining and
the wind keeps blowing though there 
are no longer leaves skin or lungs

Tuesday 19 November 2019

A Dark Place: A Poem

I’ve done a lot of stream of consciousness writing over the last couple of months—most of it absolute drivel—but even when I think I can’t write, out comes something that has some meaning, and becomes a found or accidental poem. It may not be the best writing, and I do hope it’s not too self-pitying, but it is true writing, and so worth sharing.


I wish I had some words
wish I could write                   poetry 
something to make sense
of where I am
but I don’t have words
don’t have understanding          at all 
I can say nothing 
can put nothing down

and I read novels
these dystopian tales 
by women             and I think 
I will never write because
I will never be able 
to make sense of my thoughts 
like them                those brilliant women
will never have the imagination 
to write as they do
the courage to embrace ambiguity
to face such           difficult things

I guess I have been avoiding 
looking into the eyes 
of the death mother
even though I feel 
such an affinity 
with her

I keep wishing to 
return to the earth 
because I don’t know 
how to go on

yet I will change my thoughts 
when my energy changes
that’s what always happens 
and I become new 
and different
and it’s so stupid
that I am not                   myself
that I am more than one
that there are selves inside
and they come out 
at different times

I know 
this is just a mood
that will pass
I know
still there’s some truth 
in how I feel I feel         I feel 

I wish I felt more           and better 
knew when I was           distorting 
telling myself lies
I wish I understood
learned faster
was a better human being 
for a line I read in a book 
told how feeling terribly 
about yourself 
is just a kind 
of narcissism 
and so I really wish 
I could stop thinking 
about myself at all 
and just get on with life
but the problem is that 
I can’t do anything 
except this                   here
(and badly at that)
so all I think about 
is myself and my feelings 
a world of grief 
and I wish I could go  elsewhere 
be something               different 
new and reborn
transformed 
something 
anything

but I am stuck in          no woman’s land 
a dark place
the emptiest of     shadowlands

Friday 15 November 2019

Memories of Spring

Since finishing my last painting, which I thought was returning me to a more sustained state of creative flow, I have not been able to do much. Another painting was begun, but then abandoned. Another idea was scribbled into my sketchbook, but has not progressed. Susan Griffin’s quote about the illusion of wellness has never seemed more apt.

The imagery and words that had started to spill out have now retreated within, tangling inside me, with no outlet, no freedom. Such are the seasons of illness, I suppose. I must simply endure, and wait.

Still, I can at least share with you some memories of spring …

A silver-eyed Australian raven.


Reading my story published in the second volume of Heroines, from the Neo Perennial Press.



Showy blossoms and new green.



The beautiful fabrics I bought for (yet to begin) sewing projects.


Mist on the mountains, and the pitter-patter of rain—particularly sweet memories in these dry and dangerous days of fire around the state.






Two red wattlebird chicks, waiting patiently for their next feed.


This handsome little man, strutting his stuff—a superb fairy-wren.





A fast growing wattlebird chick feeding herself from one of the thirteen waratah blooms we had on the bush in our front yard.




Expansive skies.


And sweet little gifts.


It looks like a long, hot and very dry summer is ahead of us. Rain would be most welcome, but in its absence I will keep seeking what small, succulent gifts I can find.