Month: July 2020

The waterfall today after the three days of rain

colleen General, Poetry , , , , ,

Waterfall in the remnant of forest  in easy walking from home. This is my air pocket in this city of 4 million people.

If you click the IMG below you will get an amazing 13 seconds of refreshing beauty.

IMG_9618

 

 

through the trees i glimpse a waterfall
and marvel to think it has always been here
carving musically into the heart of the earth
it has sung its song for aeons   (from new bush track)

I felt very energised after my walk .My first time to put up a video. It is only 13 seconds but amazing . I am so thrill to have this so close I can walk there and be in another world .

A poem that I wrote when i first found this place and it was published in Fire on Water 2016 publ. Ginninderra Press

new bush track

moving house means searching
for new wilderness
like a miner after an elusive air pocket

following a green area on a map
hidden by development
encroached to the edge
behind an old scout hall

a brambly track
winds me down
through a sandstone escarpment
the dawn-sun plays into the hands
of eucalypts stretched
to seek the light
yet their search for meaning
being found more in their roots
symbiotically curled around sturdy rock

here dew tipped casuarinas sparkle<
here grass trees verdantly splurge<
as if their whole purpose is to shine

self important palms push upwards
screaming rock stars

honey birds swing on rusty-gold banksia
magpies warble
in the whip-cracked air

this is the Australian bush
how it pulls me in

through the trees i glimpse a waterfall
and marvel to think it has always been here
carving musically into the heart of the earth
it has sung its song for aeons
it is the human in me that delights

nature just is
in its own world
whole unto itself
it doesn’t even know I’m here
there is a loneliness in this
yet lost from the world
i am found
and to the cadence of nature
i dance 

My local walk today. I am full of gratitude for this place

colleen General , , , , , ,

This is just my local  afternoon walk . I want to share it with someone so I will share it with my blog.
I set out over the bridge and walked past this place with the camellias just at their peak and I sent the photo to my sister  and she said it looks like a photo from The Isle of  Capri and it is actually in my local walk.

Isn’t it just stunning ?. The red camellia and its carpet and letter box .

Further on the magnolias  were many some wine, some white . I have only included the  wine one here  and you will understsand why I was mesmerised. I remembered that song

I thank God for I still can see the bloom on the white magnolia tree

Then to some of the Australian natives  the Flowering Gum which I have been awaiting and here I catch it with a bee enjoying itself, the Kangaroo Paw and the Banksia

And then the Eucalypts wattle and the Protease  are just amazing all the way along.

and then down into the remnant forest with the creek flowing  so well today I could hear it singing and becking well before I got there and I loved it skipping along . Risked my life to get a good video to show Michael when I got home. I dont think I can get this video up here so here is a photo of it

So I returned home fully energised. How lucky I am and how full of gratitude I am for this local walk.

Counting dead women by Colleen Keating

colleen Poetry , , , , ,

We are only as strong as our weakest link. When there is a crisis like a pandemic the weakest links in the chain of society break.  When there is a crisis the cracks show .

Under the cover of Covid-19 counting dead women is not being given media attention, unless it includes children or there is a  family with means to bring the story to the fore.

The 30th woman  killed by domestic violence  this year has just been named . She was 44 years old. This is late July  2020. I found my published poem written in 2014 . That is 6 years ago . What has changed?

How can this be dealt with ? If it was any other statistic – measures would be taken.  Instead money has been withdrawn from safe houses and other womens projects. And covid is now called a ‘pink crisis’.

How long for justice. ? Presently at this time my research is about Herstory  and it is so important.  But we need herstory and history  to become linked making ourstory .  When equality is present violence will diminish.

Leonard Cohen shows us hope when he sing: there’s a crack in everything
that’s how the light gets in.

It is surely time to act. We are being given another chance, we are being reminded  to look at and  see inequity face on. Society can only be given so many chances.

 

counting dead women

i rose towards dawn
to sit by the big picture window

the sky black as raven wings
lay still and silent
like a dark night of the soul

i was desperately seeking
some colour   some hope
upon the dark edge of the world
where sea and sky meet

yet my mind kept scribbling
names of women      dead women
words of violence not erased

as the darkness of the morning news
counting dead women
crowds my mind
makes raw my heart
even as the breath of dawn
spreads its radiance

Colleen Keating 2014

Sydney to Melbourne by Colleen Keating

colleen Poetry , , , , ,

It was exciting to receive  in the mail the latest copy of The Mozzie and to find my poem Sydney to Melbourne published. Thank-you to the editor Ron Heard  and team for the your dedication to poetry and poets.

 

 

The poem reminds us that the journey is more important than the destination.

Some of you will remember these slower days.

We made the trip with the family in the late 70’s to visit my sister who was living in Melbourne  at the time and  the memory reminded me of the poem Ithaka  by C.P.Cavafy where we are reminded to enjoy the trip, any trip, not only longing for a journey’s end. It is a metaphor that can be extended to many of life’s processes.

In more recent years when we drove to Melbourne I felt sad that time seemed of the essence.

 

Sydney to Melbourne

As you set out for Melbourne
in nineteen seventy-nine
your road is a long one
country towns stirring the spirit
awakening the mind
Mittagong Marulan Glenrowan Gundagai
Wodonga Benalla Wangaratta
aromas of pubs parks and bakeries
monuments of explorers local heroes
and one of a dog
sitting loyally on a tucker box
re-enactments of bush rangers
and the hanging of poor Ned

Your road is a long one
with pub counter-lunches
Chinese cafe paragon milk bars
ice creams and fruit stalls,
op-shops for old books and ‘antiques’
a fruit-fly stop and car inspection
on the border by the Murray
with its paddle steamer on the go

Brown-painted Colonial Inns
bill boards promising a pool colour TV
and luxury ‘breakfast in bed’
passed through a secret door
with the local ‘rag’
by a man in shorts and long socks

and then a repeat of the day before
visiting museums and galleries
war memorials and a climb on a canon
a walk over an historic bridge –
your road is a long one.

Not like today on the dual lane freeway
with grey concrete and bitumen
blur of vegetation
in a confining corridor
a blinkers-on journey
blind to all the signs beckoning
but the large M meaning
a Highway Service Centre ahead
a one stop for all needs
our country by-passed

Mood Indigo by Pip Griffin and Colleen Keating

colleen Poetry , , , , , ,

.. You are the music while the music lasts. T.S. Eliot 

Mood Indigo, This is a collaboration of poetry by Pip Griffin and Colleen Keating,

A Picaro Poets chapbook,  it is published under the umbrella of Ginninderra Press. It is composed of 24 succinct and lyrical poems which are perfect for the reader wanting to retreat into a pocket-sized poetry book with an inner covenant of peace.

Colleen and Pip’s poetry, an eclectic collection of lyrical poetry

transports the reader

to Alice Springs
The land’s a vast Kngwarreye
black, brown, green, ochre, painted on infinity.

to Lake Ainsworth
ducks’ wave-rippling wakes
break the spell

pleads for an end to war
what if we all bow low
to quench our parched throats
and what if we drink
from the same waterhole

and finds renewed hope
in the return of a single red wattle bird
I thought you had deserted us
but your presence
this spring morning
gives me hope.

Chapbook. $5  Order your copy online from www.ginninderrapress.com.au

Thanks to Brenda Eldridge Series editor: from Gininnderra Press.
and John Griffin for cover image

Leura Gardens 

While travelling by train to this place we visited so often

a reservoir of tears presses against my ribs

i do not want this pain to fill

the hollow of your absence

images of our time together explode behind my eyes

‘The Lark Ascending’ plays to my inner ear

cherry trees in blossom line the streets

like flower girls at a wedding 

the gardens flaunt their colours

i wear the striped jumper we bought here

under the spent wisteria at the Waldorf Gardens Resort

a jazz group plays ‘Mood Indigo’.

©Pip Griffin 4/10/18

 

my Tao poem 

when you find the Tao
others will find you
they will hear the still silence
in your voice
see the peacefulness
shine from your eyes
sense the path in your movement
feel the all is well hope in your being recognise you
by laughter and tears danced in your soul and they will be near you
to find their way home 

Colleen Keating

You are the music while the music lasts. T.S. Eliot

Pip and I enjoying Christmas celebration luncheon
at the Society of Women Writers, December 2019