Poems

=** Pale Winter Sun **=

It’s Thursday on the cancer ward Intense looks are exchanged As you go struggling forward You never once complained - about being short changed.

Instead You celebrated the pale winter sun’s glorious heat On your head On your poor, cold, cold feet.

You marvelled about Life’s little things Those - which on another day - are not “worth a shout”. You remarked how a dying spirit can have wings.

We talked about Your big **To Do** list And about your doubts You said you’d thought you’d “made a fist”

Held out for the things you’d believed Felt proud of all you had achieved Said you loved your child, your wife, the years of love and fun You revelled in the pure simplicity of that day’s pale winter sun.

You asked every time about the kids Didn’t keep your true feelings hid. We talked of familiar things in the “body politic”. You took and read - the weekly edition of the Guardian.

You held exactly true to your life’s course Carried on your usual intelligent discourse. Worked your own way steadily through Lyndon, that’s the perseverant and steady spirit of you.

Now you’re gone away The pale winter sun came out again today. The birds sung out loud anyway, caroused in nature’s long stretching run. Lyndon, I guess they felt encouraged, encouraged by that pale winter sun.


 * Frankston Foreshore **

Water fades into the sky Sky becomes water Mist swirls, water becomes sky The seagulls play They don’t ask why.

In owned and ordered brightly coloured lines The bathing boxes mark out both space and time No reveling beachgoers in this pale water sunshine Far away, somewhere in the in fog, a lonely dog - for its lost owner whines

The mist and fog have the new lifesaving club Wrapped up neatly in their firm, enswirling arms The July morning is peaceful, has its own charms Down here beneath Frankston's silenced early morning shopping hub.

The old Kanahook Creek, meanders along its way Its steady tidal flows and froths Have picked up the rain's street wash Nature is trying to wash us humans away.

Out of the fog the beautiful bikini girl, comes gliding by Barefooted, not looking for the sun On her early morning mid-Winter’s run 1 want to photograph her - but I’m too slow to try.

Further down along the coast l guess Morrie is awake, thinking of his Rosie gone on her way Struggling through another day Just now - Morrie's probably spreading Vegemite on his toast.

The sun breaks through, bathes the clubhouse in a foggy swirl in cascading softly filtered sunlight rays from on high Hey mate…..a beautiful barefoot running Bikini Girl You wouldn't expect to see that on fucking Frankston beach in July!


 * The Double Bite **

Lyndon I ran around the two bottom lakes gentle span

Again today

Midgies felw into my crying eyes as I ran

Lyndon - I brushed those Midgies away

I remembered - the first weekend

When we all moved in

Diving into that not yet polluted lake on the development’s western end

For a hot evening’s swim.

Took me thinking

That I wouldn’t swim there now.

Now that you’re sinking

And there’s bloody Tiger Snakes and fierce neighbor’s dogs around anyhow.

Ginger knows it.

That two bites can take you

Can find you out, can find you where you are at

And though you are older and wiser – at times there can be nothing left to do.

Or maybe, there’s any amount of things to do

And not enough time left, not enough time left for you

And your enormous energy, which has left

And we who love you watching – we are feeling bereft.

And of course

The snake and its doubled bite from the rear neighbor’s dog did their thing last year and

Poor old Ginger is now dead.

And maybe there’s nothing else that in the moment needs to be said

But I want to say it now, rather than later – so it enters your head.

You are much loved

For your caring and for your sly humour,

For your fierce intelligence

And now – in this - for your fortitude.

By your family.

By your friends.

By your business associates.

Whether your struggle be shorter by your choice

Or whether it is long

We are with you and we love you for your voice

For the way you are singing daily - your life’s song.

Mark Grant, May 15, 2011

Winter's Bones

All the old Royal Parade trees Have shed their leaves They stand stoically in their bare inner skins There's little winter growth now in their old tired growth rings

On leafless, reaching spare, cold branches Lonely prey birds cower and try to take their chances, They cower in their chilly lofty hideaways Away from those cold-clear eyed, searching birds of prey

In the grey mist and the gusting wind The rotting fallen leaves are now neatly placed in bins The tidy desperate rakers, rake their raking places. In coats and gloves, the walking walkers – step out their walking winter paces.

Down deep - in cold July's frozen soils Myriad subterranean insect soldiers - undertake their numerous insect toils They burrow away, make compost, and they dig on through their days All the half living things scratch and scratch; they scratch away.

In July when the cold and icy morning's freeway traffic hum is so clear and everything is stretched tight and hard with a coldness strangely like heat's burning sear and you can feel the vibrations that the magpies and kookaburras still send And your spirit is ebbing, and you are close to the end.

Nature marches on to its own tune, without seeming to try. And, in the cold and bitter months of June and July And when nature is bristling all around, both low and high When your earthly spirit is finding it harder and harder to try,

When the chill of the cold rattles your bones and you can barely sigh

Go peacefully mate – the shorter life is just sad; and there’s no earthly reason why.