The Millet Cutters.

First light streaks pastel pink.

Mist floats on the river.

Cattle stand quietly

under bamboo clumps.

A willy wagtail flicks and fidgets

on a strand of barbed-wire.

Millet grows in neat rows,

tall and straight, ready for harvest.

Five men gather around their utes,

cane cutters in the off-season.

Laughter. Hard men,

status wrought from endurance.

In the early light we move 

backwards through the rows,

then the glint of sharp knives,

chug of tractor, the trailer filling,

sweat, heat, smoko, hot black tea,

colour in the western sky,

and the tired, slow walk at day’s end.

Those men are long gone.

Time took their bodies

and machines their work,

but I see the fields in harvest,

the quiet men gathered

at the long day’s end,

Bull Williams, needing to be fastest,

Carusi with his broken English

dreaming of his own farm

and gentle, generous Mike,

who’d fought at Milne Bay,

now backlit by the fading light

as he moves through the rows

with long, easy strides

towards his waiting ute.

First published at Silver Birch Press.

Leah.

Leah.

(For my sister, Jean)

             First published at Peacock Journal.

I think of you, Leah,

your young self standing 

against tempests in calm control,

your artist eye filled with dreams

of children in golden forests,

sun dance of poppies,

moon floating high

into the velvet night,

foam ripple of waves 

washing white sand.

I think of you, Leah,

leaf-fragile, partial, secretive,

how you inch in your walker, 

flop in front of the screen’s 

mind-numbing monotony,

dream of painting again,

linger over photographs,

shuffle the years 

and that deceiver, memory,

into forms that make you happy.

Leah, is it comfort

that the gathering tide 

flowed over you, swept you 

out into the deep calm 

where the great swells gather,

far beyond the tears of the living

trapped in this tumult,

this ebb and flow of waves 

that pound upon the sand

and suck back relentlessly

into the ceaseless sea?

Evening.

Evening

places diamonds in the blue-black sky,

clothes the horizon in orange glow,

the sea in silver shimmer

and the distant clouds in purple gown.

Even the houses on the low hills

transform into sparkles of coloured light

and all the land’s imperfections, pock marks and wrinkles

brush clean away by her gentle touch.

First published at Peacock Journal.

Bella.

She kneels 

amongst the strawberries,

sunshine in her hair.

“I can do it Pa.”

Her little hand takes the plant

and parts the rich earth.

She snuggles in close.

Her arms encircle my neck.

I feel her eyes shine.

Ten thousand thousand

small, miraculous moments 

fill my heart with joy.

First published at Peacock Journal

At Piano

She keeps her sadness hidden,

eyes clear and direct,

mouth curved in a gentle smile,

but when her hands touch the keys,

a new richness seeps 

through her fingers, hangs 

for a trembling moment

in the expectant air,

then disperses into our changed minds.

First published at Peacock Journal.