Poetics of Space

Archaeology

Nanna died in her eightieth year and knew she would,
like her sisters before her, some kind of Catholic magic.
After she died my mother found two letters on her bedside table:
the last letters her sisters had written. Nanna reread
them before she left to see Cradle Mountain for the first time
with her last living sister. Her heart stopped in Burnie.
She never saw the mountain, but maybe it's the journey that counts.
My mother also found and wrapped and put away
the last wee knitted singlet my grandmother had made.
Passed on to me more than ten years later,
worn by my children, my sister’s child.
I couldn’t find it when my cousin’s daughter was born
and then I did find it, but didn’t post it in time.
Now, again, I don’t know where it is,
isn’t it strange how objects vanish and resurface
like memories?

Packing

Into the box labelled light:

late afternoons in winter

amber scales

swimming up the wall

pale curtain
tall summer grasses

silvery brush of leaves 

when from the morning’s underlight

I swim up from sleep

the farthest point of the sky

seen from each room

the green pearl darkness

of a night in full moon

Conversations with Avery

1.

You got it, the mozzie?

Yep, I got it!

Where’s it gone?

It’s dead. 

Dead?

Mm.

Oh! That’s sad.

Mm.

It has wings. It’s a girl. You kill the girl mozzie?

Yeah.

Do you get that one?

No, I missed it.

It flew away?

Do you think it’s looking for it’s mummy?

Yes. Is looking for it’s mummy. Is jumping on a tiny trampoline. Bye! Bye mozzie! I can’t get the mozzie. I bigger. No I little. You the big Mum? And you get the little mum?

2.

Mum!

Una grab my arm.

Una grab my arm and that’s bad.
Una grab my arm and she taken it away.

A Great Light for Childhood

Something has happened while we lay on the rug on the lawn.
The babies are out here with us. We’d left the big children
in the dark house, watching television, their boy and our oldest girl,
turning ten and eleven this year, almost getting to the too cool stage.
We are outside, finishing glasses of cider and wine
enjoying the new January weather, the sun flickering in and out,
playing hide and seek with shadows, but it’s a great light.
We are talking about the grape vine that’s grown, vividly unkempt,
as high as the second storey balcony, ruffling the breeze.
We'd taken off the babies' nappies, let them play with air on their skin.
Anyway, something has happened. The girls come running
from the other side of the house, tumbling through the light.
Recently they’ve started singing together, taking different parts
in the back seat of the car, which is a change from the fighting.
It’s the third day of a new year and we are already wearing it in,
later we’ll get the sprinkler going for the kids to play under.
I can’t get over the light. The girls come racing over the grass,
words falling out of them in the rush to tell, we smile up at them
and the eight year old tips into my hand the tooth she has finally shed,
her first one, and when she smiles, I see the gap.

Mad Rush

Lines written after listening to the piano music of Phillip Glass, played by Sally Whitwell

1. opening

there is space between colour

the aperture opens

light

light

light

2–6. metamorphosis

she is the road home

the tail lights of strangers

the surge of hills

the deepening sky

she is the garden party

ferns outstretching

to reveal a beautifully kept lawn

the guests are beginning to arrive

she is the glass of water

in the darkened apartment

in the tiltshift city

she is the dance of the circus horse

and the fall

she is the listening silence

drawn from memory

7. mad rush

this is a poem

it says it is and

it is

darling

8. dead things

this is also a poem

it can ask nothing of you

that you are not willing to give

don’t be frightened

9. wichita vortex sutra

the bus bleeds between stations

light smears on dirty glass

there’s an old man on the back seat

making music with himself

she leans into the silence

makes a kindly joke
at nobody’s expense

NEW YEAR'S EVE, 2013

What sort of magical thinking is this:

A day fades to nothing

And something new swirls from the galaxy’s dust?

Three moths fly from her hair

Two kangaroos box on the lawn

An owl sits on the telephone wire

Her fortieth year on earth

She borrows her husband’s glasses

So she can see the owl’s dusk speckled feathers.

This is the last summer of the house

A sign at the boundary fence says sold

The sparkling wine they drink was a gift

From the real estate agent.

They sip, planning their futures,

Her husband asks for his glasses back.

Moments later, the owl spreads its wings

Vanishes
Into the old year.