Poetry

reminder an elegy by Colleen Keating

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reminder

air is riven with grief quiet
staccato of words like whispers
spread a low slow pall shroud
our small communal world

yet in this laden torpor
cicadas still ring their song
timid blue-hearted pansies nod
and in the Harmony garden
a young hibiscus bursts
into flower it’s yellow suns
quiver with meaning

today at the funeral
words of comfort search
dragonflies on the mirrored–
surface of our loss

from a screen memories draw us in
their toasting with wine laughter
arms lovingly encircled
hugs of celebrations
to a backdrop of our tended garden
multi-coloured petunias
the white magnolia
rambling  roses that give and give

this is life it is beautiful
it reminds us of the fable
where a fish asks ‘where is the sea?’
and the wise fish answers ‘you’re in it!’

back at home  sweet scent
of friendship wafts from the garden

A Summer City Walk by Colleen Keating

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A summer city walk

We might live up in the hills amongst the trees and birds
but a pleasant train trip has us in the heart of the city
in just on a hour

Our walk into Hyde Park past the Pool of Reflection
through the War Memorial past the Mary McKillop tribute
along Macquarie Street to our first coffee stop

 

like a Narnia cupboard our State library
is a portal to another world.
we begin with Cafe Trim for a morning coffee

Had to smile how famous is this cat Trim *
statues in his honour in England and here
books written and now a cafe in its name

a quiet walk through the displayed collection
one painting catches my attention
Maria Little c. 1895 worthy of a poem *

across into the Botanical gardens
where the same tree pulls us up every time
its presence so grand that one’s memory

cannot hold it as such and so each time
we meet it one stops and sighs deeply
as if in its presence for the first time

the Calyx was where we walked and sat
amidst a kaleidoscope of colour
plants and passion

close up of the Wollemi Pine
had me in adoration before nature
its early place in evolutions

looking close up at its binary nature
a tree that lived and survived before
even insects evolved

used wind only for pollination
needing the updraft from valley floors
to secure its continuation

Hildegard would’ve given her approved nod
to The Green Wall
and its 18.000 plants

with shades of green in great variety
and spelling out the word Diversity
this ambience gave us a restful vibe

Further on we walked in a wild English garden
mesmerised by the colours
and enterprise of bees and butterflies

 

a shady spot midst sandstone outcrops
and sparkling vista of a busy harbour
our picnic tasted delicious

 

  • TO THE MEMORY OF
                  TRIM
    The best and most illustrious of his race
    The most affectionate of friends,
    faithful of servants,
    and best of creatures
    He made the tour of the globe, and a voyage to Australia,
    which he circumnavigated, and was ever the
    delight and pleasure of his fellow voyagers
    Written by Matthew Flinders in memory of his cat
    Memorial donated by the North Shore Historical Society
  • Maria Little    c. 1895  by Tom Roberts.
    This captures my attention..
    Who is she really? What is she hiding?.Is she just shy?
    What sadness she knows!
    what has the invasion of our civilisation
    done to her peeopls !
    Archivists from the historical Yulgilbar Castle in the Clarence Valley Northern, NSW have recently identified the woman to be Maria Little , a local Bundjalung woman, who worked  in the laundry at the Ogilvie family’s Yulgibar Homestead. Maria’s mother, Queen Jinnie Little, also worked at Yugilbar, along with many other Aboriginal people from the near by Baryulgil Comminity

 

Note below my gorgeous blue monarch butterfly

 

So that was my day in the city and here is another interpretation of the same day

Saturday 21st January 2023

from the diary of  Michael Keating

Today we set out for a solid walking tour of the city. I took the Fizan Explorer Walking Pole. We drove to the station and just missed a train. It is so good to get off at Normanhurst on the return journey and have the car waiting for the last 300 metres of up hill. There were plenty of people on the train and in the city.
The Lunar New Year brought a wide range of people into the city. Many were in fancy dress (Rabbits Ears for Year of the Rabbit) and groups were chasing Pokémon type targets. Colleen was amazed by the range of women styles, fabrics and designs.

We alighted at Town Hall and used the Woolworths vintage escalators to make our way towards Hyde Park. We misread the changed pedestrian conditions towards Hyde Park and chalked up a few extra criss-crossing steps. We did the full stretch of Hyde Park. We walked down to and through the Anzac Memorial and around the  Pool of Remembrance. Colleen took a photo of myself reflected in the pool. We were at either end and I was standing in front of the Anzac Memorial. The Anzac Memorial deals with WWl specifically with various acknowledgements of later encounters.

There are four sections of wall where mention is made of  every town, village, suburb from where men signed up to join the various Armed Forces together with samples of soil.

It was intriguing to wander along and note places of interest – Coonamble, Moonan Flat, Wanaaring (Paroo), Quirindi, Bega – amongst hundreds of others. The Cooee trail is iconic in NSW legend. Since I was last there, they have  added a significant water feature on the southern side (Liverpool St) of the Memorial.

From the main steps of the memorial one sees all the way to the Archibald Fountain at the northern end of Hyde Park. We walked down  the Hyde Park Avenue and made a detour past St. Mary’s Cathedral. The sculpture of Mary McKillop drew our attention. I would have liked to have wandered inside the Cathedral but I had a hat and was unable to disentangle mask, sunglasses, hearing aids, hat cord. We walked down Macquarie St to the NSW Library where we had a cup of coffee.  Thence took some time in the Portrait Gallery. It is interactive and I always like to wait for some inspiration from someone gazing down at me and then doing some basic interactive research. Today the subject was Maria Little – the  indigenous daughter of ‘Queen Jinnie Little’. Colleen was quite intrigued.

From the art gallery  we walked through the Botanical Gardens. We spent some time at the current Calyx flower exhibition. One of the Volunteer Guides was very pleased to answer our queries.

We had taken some food for lunch. As we walked down through The Gardens we kept a lookout for a shady seat. We are beyond just looking for shady grass. We were almost at the Opera House when we managed to find a seat. It was a great spot and we watched  a wide variety of boats. There were no Cruise Ships in today.

We walked around to MCA to use the bathrooms. This enabled us to have another look at some of our current favourites. Colleen did have to take a rest at  MCA and then we were on the Light Rail to Town Hall, through Woolworths and thence to Normanhurst via Hornsby.

Evening meal was a mixture of selective cheese, leftovers and a Lite’n’Easy meal.

We watched a French film called Amour. The film was from 2012 and had taken out some awards for that year. It was typically European film with subtlety and tension. The ending was both unexpected and predictable.

Thanks Michael, such a gorgeous day we both enjoyed. The venue 5 star. The company 5 star.

White Pebbles Summer Walk at Edogawa Commemorative Garden

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White Pebbles Summer Meeting

Summer Meeting

by Samantha Sirimanne Hyde,

On a lovely summer morning, eight of us gathered again for our White Pebbles meeting. As usual, before starting our ginko, we enjoyed catching up with each other’s news over a hot beverage at the Art Centre’s café. We missed Michael Thorley, who was unable to join us.

Whatever the season, it’s always a pleasure to connect with like-minded poets at the peaceful and vibrant Edogawa Commemorative Garden. A gift to the people of Gosford from Edogawa, its Sister City, the traditional ‘shuyu’ (strolling style) garden fittingly celebrates cultural exchange and friendship.

We each dispersed down winding pathways towards whatever sights, scents and sounds beckoned us – shadows flickering on the raked dry stone bed, a cheeky koi pursuing a duck, dry leaves dangling on spider silk and crazy paving triggering childhood memories of hopscotch.

A half an hour later, we gathered around the table in the downstairs meeting room in the gallery premises. As part of our homework, each person shared a sequence of three haiku and then absorbed thoughtful and considered feedback.

Marilyn Humbert had emailed us a very helpful worksheet with guidelines and examples on writing haibun prior to our meeting. So firstly, each person read out their attempts at creating their own and then exchanged feedback. This was followed by Marilyn’s workshop on the subject, furthering the introduction to haibun that she gave us in March last year. We browsed several publications that welcomed haibun. Marilyn spoke of the essence of haibun: the need to write in the present tense, the hook at the start, its “link and shift” nature, its descriptive prose, avoiding repetition, the poem requiring to connect to the story, yet taking it on a different direction, how to select an apt title etc. We thank Marilyn for her excellent workshop.

Our convenor, Beverley George informed us that our wonderful and highly talented founding member, Gail Hennessy, will be bowing out of White Pebbles. We will miss her very much and hope that she’ll be able to visit us occasionally.

Beverley then gave us an opportunity to talk about members’ recent creative efforts. Colleen Keating spoke of her new book, Olive Muriel Pink – a richly researched and beautifully written poetic journey. I spoke briefly about my debut novel, The Lyrebird’s Cry, a modern tale of self-discovery of a gay man trapped into an arranged marriage. While we ran out of time for more such discussion, our Haiga Picture Poet, Kent Robinson’s splendid work, featured on his new website, must also be mentioned.

Buoyed by our foray into haibun, we will most likely start to experiment with this form, apart from dabbling in haiku joy, until our next meeting in autumn.

Samantha Sirimanne Hyde

Group photo
From left: Samantha Sirimanne Hyde, Gwen Bitti, Verna Rieschild, Beverley George, Kent Robinson, Colleen Keating, Marilyn Humbert, Maire Glacken.
Sally Smith from the Regional Gallery kindly obliged us by taking our photograph.

Last Day of 2022: Making Peace with our Earth

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Saturday 31st December 2022 into 2023

 

With the now departing year
May your cares &sorrows ease
May the new year drawing near
Bring you happiness and peace.  SC. Foster

 

 

IT IS TIME TO STOP DEFINING PEACE

AS THE ABSENCE OF WAR

AND START DEFINING IT

AS THE PRESENCE OF LOVE

 

 Making Peace

by Denise Levertov

A voice from the dark called out,
             ‘The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war.’
                                   But peace, like a poem,
is not there ahead of itself,
can’t be imagined before it is made,
can’t be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid.
                                       A feeling towards it,
dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have
until we begin to utter its metaphors,
learning them as we speak.
                                              A line of peace might appear
if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs, allowed
long pauses . . .
                        A cadence of peace might balance its weight
on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
might pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
one of its words, each word
a vibration of light—facets
of the forming crystal.
PhotoS taken 29 th December 2022..
Thomas and Eleanor walking the cobbled lanes of St Ives, Cornwell.UK

December Days: Making peace with our earth for a new year by Colleen Keating

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Friday December 30th  2022

Joan Chittister in The Monastic Way writes:

 

The Christmas message of peace
reminds us that resistance to evil
does not require power;
it only requires courage.

Then peace can final- ly come.
As Arundhati Roy says,
“There can be no real peace without justice.
And without resistance there will be no justice.”

 

Today on the morning air
the crows are restless
small birds are hiding
there is a frenzy of arkkkk king

we know thieves of the night 
broken eggs fallen from trees
a reminder  war rages
while we sing family joy
around our laden Christmas tables
while we celebrate what? 
we acknowledge our luck  our blessings
with family and friends
while we celebrate what?

Is it war we hide  from or peace?

So, are we simply kidding ourselves? 
Will the world ever really come to peace?
In fact, is there really any such thing as peace?
And, most of all,
what do we have to do with it? 
What are we singing about?

Is all of this so-called feast
nothing more than a too stark reminder
that Karl Marx was right
that religion really is
“the opium of the people”

replace religion with capitalism 
fuel  it with adds
for what everyone needs
confused with conspiracy
and fake truth or not
lull it with  sedatives
not just zoloft or prozac
the escapism  we sell to people
either to help them survive the worst
or to help them deny it?

For now with war raging in Ukraine,
with children dying of hungar as I write ,
with seventy million ( the pop of England )
adrift on a sea of the world with out home 
 some holding on to planks of charity
some with only air to gulp to call life
some sinking in the hunger, some in despair

fifty million in modern slavery
euphonize by any other name 
we have to  believe in the critical mass
like Peace Warriors who have gone before
in the Hope of Peace

Mary Olive again pulls me up 
and out of my well
of powerlessness . . . .

‘I Go Down to the Shore’ by Mary Oliver

 A Reflection
I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall –
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.

Mary Oliver 
from A Thousand Mornings, 2012

There’s no doubt about it, Mary Oliver has that gift in her poetry for keeping us on our toes. With a sense of ease she can draw us into an intimate setting, position us carefully, then without warning pull the carpet right from under our feet. One moment we can be lamenting our sorrowful lot to Mother Nature anticipating sympathetic response. The next, by means of a gracious but firm rebuff, we’re pushed back onto our own resources. The opening expectation in this poem is completely upended by the last line: ‘Excuse me, I have work to do.’ For a substance so fluid and supple, the sea’s character is yet unyielding and resolute. Whilst not rejecting our troubled, searching self, it courteously reminds us that to be fully human means learning to swim in all seasonal tides. This includes encountering really difficult undercurrents. The sea carries this knowledge in its own ebb and flow; communicates it via ‘its lovely voice.’

I love pondering the epigraphs, those quotes chosen by Mary Oliver to preface each volume of her poetry. They contextualise her work in a wider literary sphere, invite a lens from which to view the poems in each volume. These epigraphs also give us a clue to her own mindset at particular stages in her life. I Go Down to the Shore is from the volume: A Thousand Mornings. This volume has two epigraphs: The life that I could still live, I should live, and the thoughts that I could still think, I should think – C.J, Jung, The Red Book and Anything worth thinking about is worth singing about – Bob Dylan, The Essential Interviews

One of my favourites is the line prefacing her volume Evidence: We create ourselves by our choices – Kierkegaard

Both these volumes of poetry were published in the years soon after the death of Mary Oliver’s partner for over 40 years, Molly Malone Cook in 2005. Increasingly Mary Oliver’s poetry urges the reader to choose to live a life that contains empathy, connection, presence, this ‘only once’ experience of life. It also invites us to turn our attention towards those things which are sustaining, nourishing, offer beauty. Suffering is real, lament is necessary, but so too more life-giving is our capacity for joy and re-awakening. This happens when we intuitively identify with that ‘wild silky part of ourselves.’ Noticing, as in her poem Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night, the ‘expressive sounds’ a dog makes when ‘he turns upside down, his four paws in the air /and his eyes dark and fervent’ (Dog Songs p51), the motion of a swan over water, as in her poem The Swan, and their ‘miraculous muscles’ and ‘clouds’ of wings. (Owls and Other Fantasies p10) – by noticing such in the world we are then able to respond with gestures that are honourable, partake in dialogues that are loving.
Why do we go down to the shore? To seek consolation, to hear echoes of our own ‘miserable’ state? Or to be re-awakened into choosing to live in a way that may not be prescribed, but is signified by kindness, by singing, by empathy and connection? And therefore risk being reimagined, recreated into a more fully alive human being.

Reflection by Carol O’Connor

A Thousand Mornings: Poems by Mary Oliver

Evidence: Poems by Mary Oliver

Dog Songs: Poems by Mary Oliver

Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays by Mary Oliver

 

 

Gardeners of Hope by Colleen Keating

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Gardeners of hope

Photo credit: Alicia Jo McMahan/Freeimages.com

Christmas beckons us to be the gardeners of hope, says Sydney poet Colleen Keating.
Gardeners of Hopeperhaps when we are caught
in the world’s tumultwhen we see the edge
falling away from under us

perhaps in time of overwhelm
in this wrecked and shimmering world

when we seem to be   in between  times
with hope   a misty horizon

we can wall our hearts
put on armour of fear
turn away complacently

yet it is “the tiny not the immense”*
Francis Webb reminds us
will teach our seeking eyes

Christmas beckons us
to be the gardeners of hope
tending the earth  nurturing the soil
with love  art  beauty  poetry

it calls us
to be the ones waiting
for the miracle to come

by Colleen Keating

* From “Five Days Old” in Collected Poems Francis Webb

Previously published in The Good Oil  journal SGS

Vale Robert Adamson May loving arms hold Juno through this time

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December 18th 2022

Vale Robert Adamson.

One of Australia’s great poets and  poet of our Hawkesbury River. An inspiration to so many of us. My friend  asked me to share this poem with all who mourn his loss. She wrote it in 2013 when she was reading on a platform with Robert. She sent it to Robert and he replied with his thanks and affirmation. Now our love focuses on dear Juno for the empty space will take time to reconcile.
Enjoy Pip’s poem:
The poet redux
(for Robert Adamson)
Love is what he’s about
this gentle man
who draws birds
writes poems about them
and the woman
who told him once
to choose between
the drugs and her.
Whatever he was then
she could see
the love in him.
He gives it now to us
words dancing
from his fingers
from his lips
and from his generous poetic heart.
©Pip Griffin 22 September 2013
Clear Water Reckoning
I write into the long black morning,
out here on the end of the point,
far from my wife in Budapest –
as the river cuts through a mountain
in Sydney a poet is launching
his new volume Under Berlin
and I feel like Catullus on Rome’s edge
but this passes and I turn to face
the oncoming dawn, the house
breathes tidal air as the night
fires outside with barking owls,
marsupials rustling, the prawn bird
beginning its taunting dawn whistle;
I burn the electricity
and measure hours by the lines –
I have strewn words around the living room,
taken them out from their
sentences, left them unused wherever
they fell; they are the bait –
I hunch over my desk and start to row,
let the tide flow in, watch
the window, with the door locked now
I wait – hear satin bowerbirds
scratching out the seeds from bottlebrush.
Dawn is a thin slit of illuminated
bowerbird blue along mountain lines,
in this year of cock and bull
celebration the TV goes on unwatched
upstairs, I hear it congratulating us
for making Australia what it is –
the heater breathes out a steady stream
of heated air – I go deeper
into my head, I see the Hawkesbury
flowing through Budapest, the Hungarians
do not seem to mind, they are bemused,
the river parts around their spires and domes,
I see other cities, whole cultures
drawn from territories within,
though with this freedom
comes a feeling of strange panic
for the real; so I get on
with it, writing out from this egg
holding my thought in a turbulent knot,
a bunched-up octopus. I steer
away from anything confessional,
thinking of Robert Lowell crafting
lines of intelligent blues,
his Jelly Roll of a self-caught mess
deep in spiritual distress.
Outside the river pulls me back,
shafts of light disintegrate into clues,
flecked symbols shine with order –
the bowerbirds have woven colour
around the house, through
bushes blue patterns of themselves
traced about the place; half
the moon can topple a mountain,
anything is possible here
I remind myself and begin to hum,
flattening out all the words that were
impossible to write today. I hum
out all the poems I should have
written, I hum away now also
the desire to write from memory –
there is enough sorrow in the present.
I look out over the incoming tide, dark racks
of oysters jut from its ink.
– Published in The Clean Dark 1989

DECEMBER 16: December days by Colleen Keating

colleen Poetry

Friday 16th December

Day 16   

We took a picnic and did a lovely reflective walk around the lake today.

The card I had received when we arrived  was called NATURE; AND THE INSTRUCTION “TAKE A WALK . LET THE BEAUTY OF NATURE FEED YOU”

And that’s what I did today. 

The Black Swans were close up on our side of Tuggerah Lake . They graze the wrck and reeds as do the cormorants and herons and ibis  but they realise there is enough for all, 

There is a poem here but it has not come as yet,

However  sitting here , reflecting,  watching the pelican, cormorants, black swans and lots of other birds on and around the lake demonstrates a peacefulness .  

List of remembered birds on our walk to the lake today:  ducks and cute ducklings, magpies, willy wag tails, butcher birds, native miners,  ibis , swallows, wrens, raven, kookaburra, plovers  and mudlarks . 

Accepting each other and letting be is one way to peacefulness. 

Live and let live.  

 

DECEMBER 12: OUR MONTH TO BE AT PEACE WITH THE WORLD by Colleen Keating

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Monday 12th  DECEMBER

Day 12

Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry – Mary Oliver from  A  Poetry Handbook

1.When you feel conflicted    read Wild Geese

You do not have to be good. 
You do not have to walk on your knees 
for a hundred miles 
through the desert,
repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal
of your body 
love what it loves

2. When you are feeling down or grieving   read Starlings in Winter

I want to think again
dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful
 and afraid of nothing, 
as though I had wings.

3. When you want to put up boundaries  read Lead

I tell you this to break your heart,
by which I mean 
only that it break open 
and never close again
to rest of the world.  

4. When you feel you are living without purpose  read The Summer Day 

Tell me, 
what is it you plan to do 
with your one wild and precious life?

5. When you are too caught up in your own thoughts and worries   read  I Go Down to the Shore

I go down to the shore in the morning
 and depending on the hour 
the waves are rolling in or moving out, 
and I say,

Oh, I am miserable,
what shall  –
what should I do?
And the sea says in its lovely voice,
Excuse me, I have work to do . 

On a practical level we had one of our youngest grandchildren staying with us for the weekend. 

Today, Sunday morning, began with reading of books in my bed, a game of banana using the letters in patterns, then building, then finding a target to shoot foam bullets , then he needed the plank set up and to play cars with Pa. And it was only 9 oclock. so setting out on the adventure slowed us down a little, except the weather was wild with blue sky changing to a wild windy storm gone as quickly as it arrived.

We took him on an adventure  – three train, one train took in 4 stations to Beecroft with an awesome childrens park . Then train  with 5 stations to Hornsby and a visit to the library with a great childrens section for reading, and train three of one station and walk home. We were all very tired at the end of the adveneture.    Back home it was playdough then  colouring in a monster.  (for about 10mins. ) coits , and then we stopped . Then his dad arrived from an appointment he had in city and they set back off for Coffs Harbour,

    

  1. Playing cars on Pa’s special ramp.  2. Adventure a train ride to the Hornsby library .

DECEMBER 9: OUR MONTH TO BE AT PEACE WITH THE WORLD by Colleen Keating

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Friday 9th DECEMBER

Day 9

The Swan

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air –
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds –
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

– Mary Oliver

How did I feel , in my heart, today as I met my dear friend and confidente and school friend from many decades back and as I received a text from another dear friend with her sharing of a tree she saw on her morning walk . . . its leaves in the light, breathtaking? 

And have I finally figured out what beauty is for ? 

I can only say I have come a little closer to those questions and as one poet says I am living into the answers. 

One thing I do know  Nature  for my friends and I is saviour . And with my friends we both agree from our deep spiritual awareness, Nature speaks to us   as the one who helps show us the way and nature is our chapel, church and cathedral.

Buildings where we once felt secure do nothing now for us compared to  the shape, colour, texture, smell, story, feel of  nature especially a tree.

And in this beauty  is peace. Peace for all the world??

Each of us cannot make that happen. We can only work towards it in the place where we stand.

We can only make it in the person we are and let it radiate out from there and hoping  there are enough of us that feel and act that way so that  it hits the tipping point  for peaceful ways, peaceful answers, peaceful solutions rather than always falling back into fighting and wars.  Peace can reign and life is happy for both sides of any conflict when resolutions are worked on. 

Paperbarks on my Lake Walk

speak in theirs tones of browns and cream and buff
their conversations stance all unique, feminine and real,
their rootedness, grounding and sense of place

reminding me to be present to every moment of the day 
their texture that encourage me to race home and write
and in the sound of their leaves rustling in the breeze