Day 1
Indecision or turning tide
The ocean is a field. The ocean is windy
wild, kicking, a two year old in tantrum.
The ocean begins to hiss like fired lard.
Waves swirl, twirl, like a mosh pit
of crowded concert goers. Its white plumes
and spindrift ringing the air . They remind me
of your rumpled hair on rising from the bed
uncertain of the day ahead.
Where is the moon, you ask, to parent
the tide? Turmoil is the nemesis of the mind.
The mind is a field. The mind is windy,
wild, turning here, turning there. I cannot
help but wish for a moon-god to marshal
your stirrings, directing their erratic flow.
Colleen Keating
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Day 2.
interconnection
She walks out towards the lake
precariously like a sleepwalker ambles
when they don’t really want to face the day.
Thick fog steals the horizon.
Large pines on the other side misted-in
show a ghostly giant command
peering out like Tolkien’s ents.
Her gaze has the gravitas of other worlds.
How to feel joy in this time of joy? Hildegard’s
words grooved like an old LP imprint her mind
i cannot break bread except as i am broken.
In the reeds a visiting spoonbill wades, its wide
beak raking the mud .Two pied stilts swoop at it
over and over with barking noise.
Colleen Keating
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Day 3.
Put in our place
The lake is mirrored-calm, still untouched
by morning noise.
The heat is already building for a summers day.
The visiting spoonbill, not deterred is back.
The black swans silhouetted glide peacefully.
Plovers are themselves always with a voice
for those who encroach in their territory.
Under the large pines usually full of roosting
cormorants all chatting, it is eerily quiet.
They have flown off for the day.
Only then do our feet begin to stick to the ground,
We are are walking like people with lead in their shoes.
We realise they have been busy before they left.
The result is like a glue, stuck around our sneakers, clotted
with leaves and dirt.
Colleen Keating
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Day 4.
Pause
An online group I belong to
ask for a word for 2025.
All the normal ones light up
like electric bulbs in my head–
gratitude, listen, dream.
I was out walking by the lake
and decided to pause to watch
a white egret fishes the tidal zone.
Pause. I thought how much more
it gives me focus. I see its pick-axe
precision and stealthful stepping.
I see how a caught pilchard wriggles down
its long neck and I hear wild whispers
of the wind in the swamp oaks
and to make sense of todays turmoil
the pause is a purposeful strategy.
Colleen Keating
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Day 5
Road to Jericho
RIP Michael Leunig 1946 -2024
(Thank you for reminding us of our soul
and the angels over and over
and thanks for so often being our conscience. )
it is rough uneven, familiar pot-holes
no surprise. what shocks more is lack
of safety, the unknown enemy lying low.
So many rustling angels are missed,
Leunig said, in the hurry to get from A to B
A cry for help would hardly
be heard over the cicada shrill
of this hot summers day.
Even as I conduct their bush song
my hands rise and fall in rhythm
like the oceans rolling crests and troughs
reaching crescendo of an alleluia chorus
there are still the troughs and life’s journey
is only as good as staying on the way.
Colleen Keating
While shepherds washed their sock by night
all seated on the ground
the angel of the Lord came down
and no one looked around ML
Just wrote this out till I get a clearer photo of the December calendar.
Our last calendar December cartoon. RIP Michael Leunig and thank –you
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Day 6.
Butcher bird and Magpie enjoying a drink with their careful nod of thanks.
The Perfect Pact
The bird bath stands in clear view on the terrace
like a set up eco stage for insects to skim,
wildlife including the possum passing by
and birds. We insist like a UN peace treaty
all birds have an equal right and must share
Sharon’s yellow flowered bush adds filtered shade
and a place to perch. the bird bath stands
like an icon of empathy and sharing.
And it is not one way – we enjoy the whoosh
of wings fanning the air, flamboyant colours
of show off fluttering their feathers and bedazzling us
the songs they sing in all their varied pitch and tone.
Knowing the pairs now why is it when one is missing
we feel our own fragility?
Colleen Keating
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Day 7
The dry sandy walk to Karagi Point slows
like a trek across a desert. At the far edge
the first thing we hear a frenzy of chirps,
insistent and wild flapping of wings.
Hundreds of little Terns cloud the sky across
the fenced-in breeding ground.Their flighty
path of lift-ups and dives with tight turns
and somersaults more precise than aerogliders.
Then one darts down to the sand, a dangle
of food in its beak and the sand comes alive
with beige coloured chicks.
We stand there mesmerised,
marvelling at the endurance of this migratory
bird. Its tiny heart thrumming against the wind.
Colleen Keating
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Bird Talk on our Normanhurst terrace.
They call me King . Aren’t I gorgeous.?
They don’t seem to mind me perched on their herbal garden
Waiting. Just playing my cards. Sitting on their clothes line
near their back door means they will see me soo.
I am getting them trained!
We are learning to share here on the terrace.
