Month: June 2023

A drier winter

How like us, all nostalgic about rain:
Jesus-walking through lagoons of tall grass,
forests of floodwater, Kevin 07 knee-deep

down a Brisbane street explaining... how
my seedlings wither, this blue desiccation. 
I’m in the garden spraying water and imprecations 
this is our fallow year—all that’s left

is to wander through old photographs: 
the monsoon in Varanasi (your shirt 
is so drenched), sodden in Gaudi’s park, 
drizzly in anoraks on Brighton Pier.

We rise early, drink tea, are quiet round the house.
The weatherman’s full of juju; we avert our eyes.
You wake at 3, listening—
                             that could be rain.

Image: untitled by Daniel Iván c/- Flickr. For those of you who don’t follow Australian politics, the Kevin 07 reference is to the former labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (elected in 2007), who during the floods in Brisbane Queensland in February 2011, helped residents shift their suitcases and furniture (blurry video here).


And for music this morning, here’s Swedish-Estonian accordianiste Tüülikki Bartostik with Norrland (youtube) from her eclectic 2023 album Playscapes (it’s worth a listen).

A Sea of Tears 

sea of tearsDownload

The humpback migration is in full-swing here on the east coast of Australia. From a low of around 100 individuals when whaling ceased on the east coast of Australia in 1963 numbers have recovered to this year’s estimate of around 40,000 whales (this year’s count has not finished). And they’re all heading north to the breeding grounds off the Whitsunday Islands.

And for music today here’s This Mortal Coil from 1984 with Another Day (youtube)

The Horses at the Steelworks

(after Ada Limon)

written on Wadi Wadi land

There’s a herd of horses on Springhill Road, a dozen or so. Agisted on the setback to the Hot Strip Mill, their paddock is fenced with steel made right here.

I see them briefly most days—heads down, leaning together in threes, twos, or pairs with one further off—driving as I do between home and town. Dappled greys, chestnut and horse-brown, they’re ordinary-sized, a medium number of hands high. They crop the vivid green paddocks or stand four-square as horses do.

On the other side of the works, there’s Port Kembla. I’ve lived here for a decade now. The northerlies bring the funk of coal, sooty washing, sheets and pillowcases, grit on the waterbowl, inhaler by the bedside. ‘It used to be worse,’ my neighbour (who’s ninety) says with a shake of her head. ‘Much worse.’ Wonder how we’re inured to train brakes shrieking, huge plumes of steam, ships moaning. And the horses? With flames all night, violet and yellow.

The horses are loved. Dads and daughters pull out of the speeding traffic into the culvert to unload bales, brushes. A granny smith offered on the flat of a hand. Some Saturdays they’ll back a float in and drive to a bridle path or event somewhere.

Blanketed by soot and noise the horses remain, full of possibility. And we wonder, while waiting for the lights, whether in dreams—a dash down savage grasses, the thrill and wind in the run

Image: Horse in Motion, Eadweard Muybridge, 1830-1904 c/- Boston Public Library. Ada Limon is US poet laureate and her earlier work included poems on horses including Foaling Season. The horses at the steelworks are a different herd entirely. Springhill Road runs adjacent to the Bluescope Steelworks at Port Kembla.

And for music this morning, something beautiful from Saint Hidegard von Bingen via Australian artists Kim Cunio and Heather Lee with various musicians: The Sacred Fire (youtubers).

This Warmer Winter


Revived, a house fly cartwheels past my nose,
hyper at 20 degrees C. It’s June and 
in the garden: butterflies (!) skinks on stones
marigolds resurgent, magpies carolling, 
sweetcorn that should have been pulled in May 
re-shoots. Even the jasmine (tired old trope) blooms.

The brassicas grow rank and bitter in their beds
as we, sweating under the winter duvet,
argue (over) heated lines or fast-forward 
through eps. of Alone, to linger on the snow shots. 

O winterless world, what’s to become of us
polar bears and poets, schooled by the seasons:
‘how frost doth spangle the lips of a rose’ 
Adapt! Find a new metaphor. I grow old. 

Image: Polar Bear at Seaworld Australia c/- Misaochan2, CC BY-SA 4.0 on Wikimedia Commons. Here in Australia it’s been a warm start to winter. Seaworld is an entertainment park in Queensland featuring a range of displaced animals.

And for music today here’s Belgian Afro ensemble Zap Mama with Brrlak! (or youtubers) .