A Compendium of poems.

 

 

 

 

             Under the mallee bough,

                Across the quiet waters,

             Blended with cries of river birds,

                We hear our ancestral voices . . .

 

                                                         A compendium of poems.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                              ( Sponsored by : The Scriveners Review.)

 

 

 

 

 

Cherish the Trees.

 

In September,

Pink gum blossom flowers

Against the spring blue sky –

While among the leaves

Honeyeaters wage silent and savage wars

Over the bounty of the nectar.

 

Last year’s fledgling magpie

Practices his carol,

Weaving a spell

Over cliff and mud and reeds

Of the river valley.

A black feather, faultless in every detail

Lies upon the grass.

Whose hand crafted the perfection of that feather?

Gifted to each bird, their song

Grew each leaf, upon each tree?

 

In September,

The pink gum blossom falls

Upon the old brick path

To make a rich and splendid carpet for my feet,

That fades,

As swiftly

As the sweetness of the spring.

(H.T.)

 

 

 

 

Silence & Stillness.

Be still..

What merit in rushing about,

Like scalded cat, all fuss and shout,

When chance and the wild world,

Intrudes with its multitude of variables,

So never can we be certain of a correct choice.

So be still..

And with a matador’s flourish,

With a sweep of the cape, we make,

A “veronica” turn and avoid grave mistake!

The clamour and shout of public opinion,

No more than a roar of bluff and delusion.

Be still..

My friends, be still..wait till passing rage,

Exhausts itself in futile passage,

How many empires in an eon of age,

Destroyed themselves in self-flattery?

Leaving only scant remnant of golden days.

So be still..

With purity of thought we climb,

To heights only dreamed of in many minds,

All intention fixed on ascending away,

From base existence and mob affray,

Until we breathe air with the Gods company.

Be still..

We of an age have served our time,

Apprenticed to family, work, demands, grime,

Until now, at this age, we claim for our own pleasure,

To meditate at our own private leisure,

Those moments treasured in memory sublime.

So be still..

Be patient, reduce work to simple actions,

Show compassion to our fellow travellers,

In this way we build on our courage,

To hold at bay, life’s intruding emptiness,

Forever together we can live in quiet sleep.

So I urge you..

Be still . . .

Be still . . .

 

(J.C)

 

 

Early in the Spring Morning.

 

I want pie,

Said the man in the moon.

Apple and blackberry,

Fig jam and cinnamon,

Pudding and wine.

Words are a rhyme

A chant and a song.

A magic, a murmur

Drips from a broken crock.

Dropping,

Into a dark well

And gone.

 

(H.T.)

 

 

 

Y’ know..

I go outside in the mornin’

Pause..take in th’ weather..;yawnin’,

Mark how the dawnin’ sun

Gives the silver’d branches of the Mallee

A dun coloured sheen…nice ‘n clean.

Matching the wing of a galah

Tight-cling’d there…..on a spar.

An’ I’m thinking..

In this quiet, morning haste

That one oughta’ feel some poetry

Whilst in such a place..

But then…ah..it’d just be a waste…

 

(J.C)

 

Pink Thongs.

 

Short brown hair, blown in the river breeze,

A face that looked more inclined to smile than to frown.

Grace in her movements,

Though her body was large

And her feet, in pink thongs

Were white and fat.

 

Glimpsed in the few minutes that it takes

The ferry to cross the water

I wondered

What journey you were on,

And from whence you came.

Though I am a stranger to you,

We are fellow travellers

For we are all following the same path,

We are all trying to find our way home.

Is it from the dust of the stars that we were made?

Or are we in spirit, treading a pot holed road?

Only the wise question each turning of the way.

Only the valiant dare its deepest shadows.

Only the gentle hearted know all

Whether star dust or clay,

Must stumble now and then.

 

Journey bravely, fellow traveller,

For the strong river,

And life,

Flows on.

And to our own heaven,

We each are bound.

 

(H.T.)

 

 

 

The Eastern Star.

I call that star in the early morning sky,

“The Eastern Star”..for know not I,

The names given to stars of the night,

Save those sung in songs of delight.

I confess I know not, so many things,

Like the names of public holidays,

People’s names, and sundry things,

Of deep regret I have to sling..

But I do know the difference,

Between what is intoned,

As a lonely life against a life alone.

Myself, if I can but quote;

‘Married with children’, not to gloat,

But to example a situation done,

Yet to me, I live in this life alone.

For there is one part of my soul,

I would not like to have others know,

Of thoughts I think nor ideas I sow,

Not for want of any scant disgust,

But rather because I have so little trust,

Or faith that “the public mob” (‘scuse my scorn),

Would not banter and laugh to so forlorn,

At my silly dreams and colourful plans I lay,

Should ever such come to the light of day..

So best I live in this life alone,

With all my angels, demons and dreams convolved,

Rather than see myself be publicly scold,

And let what is personal, not obscure personality,

Be the measure of my worth in social equity,

And so leave The Eastern Star shine down on me.

 

(J. C.)

 

 

 

The Shrine.

(An ode).

A whitened, limestone country road,

Wedding ribbon white in the Mallee sun,

Mile upon mile stretching lonely, ever on,

Past a wrought-iron gate it does run,

Where sits silent an old Mallee school,

A singular shrine for our memory’s recall.

*

In the deep hollow of a morning frost,

Mallee trees loom like spectral ghosts,

Thickly, fog slithers through the forest,

While the muffled calls of birds disturb the air,

Dewdrops, wire-captured, make sharp crystals of ice,

And the cold bites to the bone and freezes there,

*

In high Summer, The Shrine sits solid, still,

Its stone walls a bulwark against the heat,

It’s iron roof in creaks and groans it yields ,

Under an incessant barrage of the Sun,

A crow insistent, barks its clamouring cry,

Hot, hammer-welded on the anvil of a Mallee sky.

*

In the cool silence, inside The Shrine,

All the reminders of a time long-gone,

Pictures, desks, initials carved in grain,

A welcome fireplace small at the room’s end,

And a table, clothed, in the middle sits,

Almost sacred..like an altar..lay’d with holy writ.

*

Once upon a time..

. . . A school-ma’am would ring a big, brass bell,

Starting time for lessons it labouringly peals,

Ka-ring! Ka-ring! Ka-ring! Its deep echoes chime,

Like the rolling, rhythmic chanting of a nursery rhyme,

And all the children would rush to stand in line,

To enter the classroom instructed..one at a time.

*

Pencils, pens, nibs, ink wells and exercise books,

The school mistress chanted dictation with gravitas words,

A dozen children shuffled bare feet on a wooden floor,

Impatient for lunchtime, releasing them to play some more,

Spilling out of the small schoolhouse with all the cries and glee,

Of a yelping, rampaging, victorious, conquering army!

*

Ball, bat, and galah cry, mix as syrup in deep Mallee sky,

Onward, Tommy, onward Helen, onward little Charlotte!

A new world is awaiting your laughing chatter and talk,

Awaiting all your wild dreams and schemes and design,

One day, far away from the shelter and origins,

Of learned lessons and structured discipline. . .

*

It is recorded that..

The school was built from the saddest cost,

A schoolboy drowned as he the Murray River crossed,

The community joined to ameliorate the pain, stop another loss,

Childrens tender years lived and growing under the shade,

Under the shelter of a benevolence shown to thee,

Of This Shrine, sheltered among the Mallee trees.

*

But there is a little Principality here..in this locate’,

A small kingdom one enters through the front gate,

One touches the ethereal film keeping us at bay,

From those times gone past, and the here and now,

And for just that moment when we touch these built stones,

Desks, books, look to the pictures..with their story we co-join.

*

For what remains after a time of years gone,

If not the visible shadows of those who lived when,

Such photos taken, structures built, tables hand-worn,

And cannot one hear the same cries of children’s joy,

And what is it that a child there could ever see,

That could not in like kind be visible to the child in me?

*

Along that white, lonely Mallee road,

A limestone school sits in its silent realm,

Reminder of how those communities lived,

Dependent on their skills and hard work done,

The memory, fixed always now in our body and mind,

Embraced, revered ever lovingly as….The Shrine.

 

(J.C.)

 

 

Testament.

 

Flowers on the grave,

Spread upon the new turned ground.

The noon day hush

And a lonely tree –

There is no communique

Between they who sleep

And those who stand and mourn.

 

I have a photograph,

Blurred and small,

Of a girl with guarded eyes,

No smile.

What small girl unhappiness

Made you guard your eyes so well?

I have wondered since

If she ever wholly went away,

That child.

Or if she lingered,

Through the years,

In all the roles you made your own –

Wife, dearest Nana;

Mother, most and best of all.

 

I prayed for you each day,

Not knowing what to pray for

Or what was best.

Knowing, beyond the waiting and the prayers,

That the end was written long ago.

Oh, how fast the chains of fate are fettered,

Link upon link,

Through the slow hours of time.

 

My hope was too small.

All my prayers

Were doubtful questions in the dark.

My love

Could not ease your grief,

Nor shield your face from pain.

Is it enough that I remember now

The small and ordinary moments,

And smile?

I wish, I hope, each prayer,

Each smile and remembering

May shed one small candle’s light

To turn the dark, to light the way

Of your road to Paradise.

 

The grass is smooth and green,

And a small neat stone

(Place no flowers, please),

And the world is a little colder, now

That you are gone.

 

(H.T.)