Poem of Thanksgiving: On My Father's Recovery From Illness

1
Clay river turning gold…
The risen moon has set its seal
on day's open blue letter.
Pebbles are sun-husked, scattered
coin, the melaleuca glows
with a honeyed flame above
obdurate green shadow.
Smooth trunks slide sinewy
into darkness. Smoke billows
over scrubland — mauve, then grey.
2
Curtains bell into the room
on eddies of evening freshness…
Crowded as goslings in a nest,
the freesias sprout
from their earthen chalice;
white inlaid with gold
but slowly browning
like the room, our faces…
Tides from an unknown sea
pluck at us, whisper endings
we cannot yet grasp.
3
Their cries, with a beaked
sharpness, pierce the air;
rain slides from clouds broken
by sea winds tearing in;
flung back as they fall, waves
split, fly out into darkness;
a band of mist, bright as a corona,
rims the onrushing tide.
4
Lantern cloud, moon-flesh…
Pier shadows flap —
black sheets on a windy line.
Wings over water;
the night-flare of barium.
5
At first light, the first bird — a myna.
Window-framed, the vine's proscenium ushers in
the nervous dance of head and body —
a pure note rehearsing to some hidden score.
Then, above the wind's slow swell,
staccato chortlings unlock a savage carol
that ends in an exultant stillness
poised on wind-flung bough.
6
The grasses are rose-tipped, dying…
Sunlight unrobes and bathes the river's body.
Colours, like lures, rising…
At the river mouth, crystal scales lap
on glinting ochre; the bridge casts
its shadow line between fresh water, salt;
the hard flesh of headland stands, pummelled
by acres of air… Sea birds, free
from the self's dream, our earth-rooted heaviness,
open/close wings steadily as hearts, then
— poised, aslant — ride like leaves
the willed sea wind.
7
Water haemorrhages to whiteness.
Ocean shines with the living greenness of an eye.
Patterns cut and merge beneath flying riffs of surf:
alchemy of green into blue, wave into salt-fine mist…
Throughout this day,
perfect definition of line and essence,
as if wind had blown light
to a bell-like clearness.
Day's infinite depth
open and fluted like a shell.
8
An ibis steps
with uncanny elegance
into its shadow,
tests sand with claw,
beak-probes,
in flickering slow
motion: touch and being,
stillness and seeking,
one: the ibis
stalks its
image, now
white, now
grey, on brimming glass.
9
Winter plantings: seeds of sound
thrust into the wind's furrow,
its hard, cool breath haloed by whisperings
of the never born, the early dead.
Leaning, the thrush opens its body,
sings… All gifts fulfilled
in their yielding up — to rhythms
of light and air, to an unknown music
heard only through these clear notes
resounding like the silver echo
of a body.
10
On the table, cinerarias
purple and white:
fresh picked and perfect
in their velvet stillness…
Around us the sea rolls,
its daylit murmur softer
than the night's.
So often we feel the pattern, the pulse,
only as the wave breaks, or after it has broken.
But we have been given time,
may live in new ways towards each other.
We move about the house
hearing, as in the sea's fall,
a steady breathing encompassing the breaking.
The flowers glow. Not yet
the hourglass journey
into no-being, new being…
A yellow ash circles the vase,
blends with the grained wood.
11
One leaves some worlds
only to enter others…
As so often before, my eyes follow
black swans risen from the marshes,
turning in flight to shimmering points,
then disappearing… Where?
Later, low gulls crest the sun's
last warmth, a surfer tilts and swoops
as if in flight…
Powering shining breasts,
the grey wings row, unlit.
12
So many tides have brought us to this spring.
I stand on the pier and watch the bridge lights
tremble their beads of amber on jet satin.
Planks, almost companionable, creak in the night…
The heavy freshness of salt and blossom on air
free, for once, of bird sound, but crowded
with summer's promise. The wind barely breathes
in a haloed silence where tragedies, joys,
meet and enfold each other… Ocean's musk smell
still lingers inside the jasmine.
I will close the gate
and walk from the soft dark into the warm house,
and sit, waiting, remembering.
Barwon Heads, 1982