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ARTS AND CULTURE

Cycling rhythms of eternity

  • 16 July 2018

 

Selected poems

 

Dragonfly season

Mottled moon, egg-shaped,

in a sky baby blue.

Easter Friday,

dragonfly season.

I swim laps, backstroke.

My hands, arms are oars

of this lifeboat.

The ceiling is a patchwork

of grey-white like dragonfly wings.

As I swim I see a dragonfly cocooned

within these walls between ceiling and lagoon.

I metamorphose,

emerge from darkness.

 

The dragonfly

Japanese sign of courage

strength and

wellbeing.

 

 

 

Lost patience

Knowing how to wait

for fruit to ripen.

Seeding, hoping for harvest.

Training children to

maturation so they become

contributing citizens.

Learning new skills

and gaining mastery.

Practicing, making mistakes

but keeping active.

Progressing, continuing the

cycle to completion.

Everything is instant.

We have lost the rhythm

of perseverance.

 

 

 

Neighbour

I look across the fence,

see the Hills Hoist skeletal

stripped of that which clothes our flesh.

When you are on holiday

I note your return when

the skeleton is reborn.

Now your absence has permanence.

Over-the-fence parleys are past.

No lifting of children to peep

beyond the boundary to greet.

No sounds of domesticity

like the washing machine

thrumming, your child laughing.

Now, on the line, birds chatter.

I'm bereft of comfort craving

your presence and the daily

observance of liturgies

belonging to stay-at-home mums.

Visits discussing incidentals of rearing.

Adult conversation while the children frolic.

The confidence that I am not mothering alone.

 

Communion my soul seeks

that gives life to my bones.

 

 

Wave Rock Hyden

We climb the wave —

a gesture of greeting or farewell?

 

Lichen niches embedded

with carnivorous plants —

gargoyles with hooked noses.

Mini-canyons make stone puzzle pieces

placed to perfection.

 

We walk to Hippo's Yawn tafone:

Crushed from within by salts —

halite and gypsum sourced

from northern lakes.

We tread the path through fountains of grass,

Rock Sheoaks and grasstrees,

mostly cleared York Gums,

symbols of fertility.

 

Movements of time —

Farewell to ancient granite.

Greetings to gleaming streams and

striating ribbons of colour.

Cycling rhythms of eternity.

 

 

 

Deanne Davies lives in the regional city of Geraldton, WA with her husband, two children and dog. An award-winning poet, her poems have appeared in Verandah, Arena and Eureka Street. Deanne is passionate about spirituality and environmental and social justice and has strong interests in history, literature and science fiction.