Morning finds her curled like a prawn Around a stuffed blue Pegasus, or the smallest Prawn-pink lion. Or else she’s barging Into my room, and leaning in close so It’s her hair I wake to — that coarse, dark Heaven of knots and purple fluff. … She wants a movie, or maybe Just the tussle […]
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Do you remember how great summer holidays were as a kid? A seemingly endless expanse of time when the daily routine of school-homework-weekends was suspended in a glut of play. I don’t remember the specifics of summer holidays but I do remember the rhythms. Cricket, of course […]
islands parting tides as meteors burn the air. Oysters powder to chalk in my hands. – from ‘The River’ by Robert Adamson It’s been raining for days.* Heavy rains that leave the air humid and cloying. A sky washed in bruised shades of grey. It makes the spring greens look impossibly greener, the overhead leaves […]
I’m still asleep but you know I will wake if you need – from ‘Wangal Morning’, Evelyn Araluen It’s been a wet spring here in Narrm/Melbourne. The sound of the rain on our deck woke me up from a deep sleep sometime in the early hours of the morning. I’d been dreaming of oceans and […]
I bend to it willingly, this patch of earth and its green things, in their own world (though I hold the title to it) hungry for life…” – from ‘After’ by David Malouf We planted daffodil bulbs yesterday, the kids and I. Fingers in dirt, carefully. Now we water, and wait for them to bloom, […]
“There is not city But the city within. No door, but the door To simple wisdom. We walk, dumb As newborns. Into the tremendous and endless Blessing.” – from ‘The Hinge’ by Cynthia Cruz Last night was sweltering, the heat of the day barely letting up. And despite their exhaustion, the kids weren’t interested in […]
“…balance of humors, coconut liquor thinned / by broth, sour pulp of tamarind / cut through by salt, set off by fragrant / galangal, ginger, basil, cilantro, mint, / the warp and woof of texture…” – from ‘Hot’ by Craig Arnold Lately, both kids have been climbing into our bed at various points through the […]
Now the leaves are falling fast… – from ‘Autumn Song’, W. H. Auden The day we made these Pear & Strawberry Muffins last week was unexpectedly lovely. The morning was the first really cold one of the year. Thick socks and hot cups of tea kind of cold. Frosty breath in the morning air, clear blue […]
“But then the dark skin of night would peel off and there would be a fresh day waiting for us, glossy and colourful as a child’s transfer and tinged with the same sense of unreality.” – from My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell Pre-dawn on Monday morning T and I boarded our train home. I had no […]
come on sweetheart let’s adore one another before there is no more of you and me — from Fountain of Fire, Rumi It’s Monday evening as I write this, cool enough for the first time this year to be wearing socks and a jumper. The kids are asleep, their soft breathing barely audible from the next […]
