What is foreverThe earth and its mortal crustLike our own skinCovers somethingWhich at one pointWas notAnd in some distant pointFar beyond this eveningWill no longer be
The neon beckons from within the dusk____Blue electricIt alone refuses to be wrapped withinThe mauve of evening(slowly)The rest of us are engulfed byThe approaching night
What is forever?— Sitting on the dry grass withBare feet as the night settles itself? —
Colours shift andShadows settle. The shaking ceasesBreathing inThe realm of the verifiable.–Cecilia Condon
dandelionsThe dandelions are generous,offering their abundance to the eye.The dark green lacework of root and leaf,the flat open faces of their footholdsin my narrow garden,mark it now from end to end.At first, there were only a few,but year by year, these solitaries sent outseedlings, and the numbers grew.Others would remove them — poisonor a brutal grubbing out by the roots;but the dandelions are generous,so we live in fellowship, the weeds and I.I allow myself to be surprised, each month,by their golden glory, the slender armsreached upwards to a loving sun.Soon, the mower comes, with his machine intent,and sickles through this joyful harvest,dropping the glowing haloes on the ground.Yet the dandelions are generous, forgiving mesuch desecration. In this garden,we are companions, the weeds and I.The roots run deep in the sleeping soil,feeding the stalky uprights of greened lives.The sun, as always, will come to welcome them,watching them fall and rise, to fall and rise again.This is all we know, the weeds and I,opening our small clenched soulsto the waiting sky.–R. Nugent
AutismSomething in me knewthe common ground they walked onthe tilt and shake from overloadthe rocking singularitylost in some transfixing glowbrought home by a steady voicemaking patterns in the airstaring into middle spacediamonds polished in the sunlife played to a steady rhythmno world beyond this now.–Rob Donnelly
Cecilia Condon is a Melbourne based writer and actor. She works as a development assistant for a Melbourne based television and film production company and is currently completing the Professional Writing and Editing course at RMIT.
Rob Donnelly is a Sydney based freelance writer. He is currently working on a collection of poems with a view to publication in the near future.