Rock Dreaming.

First published at Guy Farmer's Social Justice Poetry.

I walk past water gums,
roots twisting and flowing over rock,
past the creek's eddy and swirl,
past deep grooves in rock
made long ago by sharpening spears.
Is that the laughter of naked children?
No. They are long gone,
now only imagination's shadows
flitting through scrub.

I scramble up a long hill
to stand on a huge expanse of rock.
The world seems quiet and still.
All around in the stone are carvings-
kangaroos, emus, women, men, shields, spears,
a great spirit creature.
I imagine clans of Dharug people meeting here
to dance, laugh, cry, draw, worship, wonder,
and most of all, to belong.
Do I sense them?
That is a lie.
Their culture, life, laughter and song
have shrunk into the past.
They seem long gone.

I lie on the rock and close my eyes.
Underneath my back
are curving patterns in rock.
I see cloud, rain, sun’s rising, sun’s falling, moon, stars,
the diamond quilt of night.
I see people greet, paint their bodies, tell stories, dance, sing,
belong, feel purpose, feel love, draw and carve.
I am filled with loss for the changes of time,
for the tangle of history,
for the injustice of the present,
for prejudice, dislocation, theft and murder,
and I know that where they,
in such deep belonging, did roam,
my ancestors, England’s rejects,
came from the other side of the world
to claim it as their own.

The sun is low.
I begin the long walk back.
As I walk I am moved by the knowledge
that Dharug people are still living,
scattered through the land of their ancestors
and although the past cannot be changed,
its loss and sorrow should be sung.
I am taken too by the crazy dream
of a single people
meeting under these southern stars,
upon the great patterned rock of this land
to draw, dance, embrace and sing together

as I descend into a gully
and the sun disappears
and the single evening star
hangs low in the darkening sky.

Tears of God.

Upon the election of Donald Trump as President of the USA, many in my faith community, mostly good-hearted, sincere people, responded with confident statements about God being in control of the world and placing Trump there. They nearly always referred to Daniel 4:17. This poem is my response.

So when a contemptible man was given
high office and great power, someone said,
to a chorus of approval-

"The Most High rules the kingdom of men
and gives it to whosoever he will
and sets over it the lowliest of men"

I thought I heard in those words
a little condescension,
some satisfaction of being in possession
of secrets unknown to other mortals

and into my mind came a challenging thought,
that if God is in control He is doing terrible job

because I saw,
somewhere in Syria, in an ambulance,
a little child covered in dust,
eyes blankly expressionless beyond confusion;
saw too a mass grave
with a hundred decapitated bodies;
saw ruined landscapes,
camps in Germany, Poland, Siberia,
a mushroom cloud spreading up from Nagasaki,
a little naked girl, her face contorted in terror,
running along a dusty Vietnamese road
and saw too the long warring, violent, unjust, oppressive
history of humanity.

Then the thought came to me
that God is not in control,
that He could never control such horror,
that he has not directly controlled
the establishment of monsters
In positions of power

but that He has surrendered these Kingdoms
to the violence and folly of mankind
until the end of times
and that He is deeply anguished,
filled with grief and sorrow,
vexed and lamenting for what He sees,
and that He must be weeping
for the darkness of the world

and surely all those seeking transformation,
desiring the fruits of the spirit,
longing for the Kingdom of God
and its righteousness
must be grieving, lamenting
and weeping too.

At Piano.

At Piano.

She keeps her sadness hidden.
There is no sign of the weight within,
a grief that could engulf others.
She is quiet, dignified and charming.
She gives you that clear, direct look.
Her mouth curves in a gentle smile

but when her hands touch the keys
in those practised, skilful, complex patterns
there is now something beyond accuracy,
as if in some mysterious way
sadness seeps through the fingers
that touch the keys
and the sound is transformed
so strength, dignity,
haunting beauty and pathos
and an awareness of life's mingled mixture
of joy and sorrow
now sound from key, hammer and soundboard
to hang for a moment
in the trembling air
before dispersing
into our changed minds.

Another one sentence poem

September 1.

Winter has muttered goodbye,
kind of slunk away

because Spring has come
bursting in through the door,
face full of sunshine,
arms filled with flowers,
pulling back curtains,
throwing open windows,
dancing and singing all through the house

but if you listen carefully
you can still hear old Winter grumbling away
about how he is coming back.

A One Sentence poem.

Some things can't be changed

but maybe
when a bramble fire rages
weeds are burnt away

or when blue-black clouds billow
they bring rain and sweet new growth

and even bitter cyanide
poured over low grade ore
removes the dross and what remains
is gold

but it just might take some time....

If I ( A Silver Birch Press prompt)

If I had a wand to wave over this world
for what then would I wish?

The first: for warring humanity to beat
swords into plow shares and turn hearts to peace.

The second: for government to free its shackled mind,
rule in justice for the poor,
and seek equity and equality of opportunity.

The third: for the relentless plundering of the earth to cease,
for every acid stream and every gaping ruined landscape to heal,
for water to be clean, the glaciers full,
and forests free in their glorious diversity.

The fourth: that all creatures could have their place
on this life-filled planet,
that soft-eyed orangutans
could hang unharassed in their forest homes,
that no more rhino or elephant
would ever again lie bloated and fly blown,
killed for horn or tusk,
and the tiger could rumbling purr
in sleepy peace in the flecked sunlight.

Yes, like prophets, dreamers, visionaries, poets,
if I could I would wave that wand

but I must settle for what I can do, so
if I can re-make this heart,
step by step, day by day,
in gentleness and kindness,
in tender, merciful love for all things,
if I can be slow to anger and quick to forgive,
if I can live in harmony and peace,
if I can tread lightly on this earth,
this must be sufficient for me,

though I will still lift my eyes heavenwards,
hoping, dreaming, desiring
so very much more
and thinking as well as "If I"
"If we".

Recovery.

Your world shrinks.
You have no thought of death,
although it breathes on you fiercely.
Pain fills the morphine bubble
in which you float in strange detachment
on the edge of alternative consciousness.
It consumes you.
Nothing else.
Just pain.

Then comes despair.
That night when she bends to kiss you,
turns and walks out the door
you are alone in darkness that is absolute.
Is it morphine that drifts your mind?
You are who-knows-where, far, far from your body,
that tubed, monitored, wounded thing
lying stiffly on a bed that is not yours.
You feel too alert for morphine's dulled half life.
Somewhere in the darkness
comes a connection so strong it surges through you,
an awareness of a much greater consciousness
to which your small life is somehow connected.
Despair lifts. There is hope and peace.
The darkness comes again
but it is not unconsciousness
or the numbness of morphine
but the blessedness of sleep.

You wake.
There is a small window.
In it the leaves of a tree are swaying in breeze
and glittering with light.
Have you never seen this before?
How have you missed this window,
this play of light, these bursts of colour?
Have you been blind?
How could you have taken this for granted?
This picture framed by the small window,
is beyond beautiful.
It is miraculous.

Finally, she takes you out, down the corridor,
opening the door, holding your elbow
and you limp out into the world.
Is this rebirth? Everything is new.
That blue of sky.
Those wisps of cloud.
The beauty of those trees.
And down there, at the end of the street,
is Constitution Dock and the Derwent,
light and water combining in sparkling dance,
surge of boats, white sails filling with wind,
gulls rising, floating, raucously begging,
noise of children, crowds of people,
the old sandstone buildings lining the dock,
all colour, light and movement.
The beauty shakes and overwhelms you.
It shouts its glory. It waves its wonder.
You grasp her hand. You stand in awed silence.

Your eyes will never be the same again.
You feel you have seen into the sacred,
grasped at the miracle of life.
Both for the moment are yours to embrace again

for you, who have been in darkness,
have now come out again into the light.