Guided Tour

Do you remember Lake Mungo well enough for a poem?

Question asked by my mother

there are fossils in the memory 

that can be uncovered

by the faintest swirl of wind

roads get rewritten

we leave ourselves in the places we visit

i am half and you are half

here i am

a small fist of bleached bone,

here you are

the ribcage that sheltered me

dry surface

shallow hills

seems lifeless

everything important 

occurs somewhere hidden

wooden structures crumble

undoing of shallow history

bone things become ash

stories run deep glacial

radical rising

How do you ask the right question?

For Ej, who asked.

In the hot afternoon, we turn on the sprinklers,

for Avery, aged 6, and Frieda from next door.

Bees hum to the clover, but at the light touch

of the first drops they lift, six bees together,

and glide in a single mission to the vegetable garden.

Avery and Frieda dance at the edge of the lawn

Wait, says Frieda, what powers do we have?

Summer, childhood, where every day is long,

blue sky, green grass, frozen bananas on an icypole stick.

Nothing is perfect in this world, not even slow time on warm days,

but the children make something of it,

more lasting than memory.

Big Wet Thing

It’s a lot of work really
Sandwiches made and not eaten,
you bring home a beach worth of sand
and disperse it in the bed sheets
an ecosystem forms in the base of the shower
and you’re washing shell grit down the drain
long after the beach weather
has clouded over.

The older kids run in, swim too far out,
while the little one hangs back,
fearful of the waves.
So your husband edges slowly into the water,
‘watch the kids, hun’
and you hang back on the beach
to take care of the littly.
All you really want to do is swim
out to the horizon,
out past the edge of the world.

You get out the camera.
You look down the lens and see
light chooses you 

or it doesn’t choose you.

Today's poem responds to a photo prompt from Nadine Cranenburgh. Photo is by Leon Brooks

Should I think about it first?

Dedicated to @ernmalleyscat

Some things don’t bear thinking about.
Some of those things happened today.

I’m in this safe place
where poems slide
down my face.

Weather Warning

Today's question – Is it going to rain today? – courtesy of Zoe (@SaidHanrahan) so:

for Zoe

How do you make a river?
You feel one on the tip of your tongue,
taste it as it runs past,
trickling down the page.

We hang out our washing,
gather it in, fold it up, put it away, take it out,
put it on. It only stops being laundry
when we wear it.
And in the meantime
fine days turn to dust.

There is the rain you want,
and the rain you don’t want.

Right now, outside,
the air is so still,
it is holding its breath.

Do you like pomegranates?

For Mark Lawrence, who asked the question

My girl’s asleep

Absence of earth

What is hidden

Remains alive

Things within things

Mother and daughter

The seeds of war

Hell’s garden tended

By Hell’s gardener

Seeds bit into

Sour and sweet

Because she was hungry

Because she was curious

And sharp

Because, in a way, he suited her

Because she already lived

Between two worlds

Because she liked the taste

She sucked the tingling juice

She lingered

My grief is winter

More Than I Love You

What’s the most beautiful thing a child has ever said to you?

Question from Jessica Obersby 

I love you more than I love you.

He speaks in tongues, honey & milk.

I breathe his breath, summer sweet,

as I lie down to sing him to sleep.