a little 'cross pollination' between blogs in the form of some poetry

I tend to keep poetry for another blog-space but then reminded myself that Sailor Lily started out as my sole 'writing space' for all things. This poem came about when thinking of all the avenues of elms dotted around little Australian country towns. Often called 'avenues of honour' there would be an elm or gum tree planted along the road for each man lost to war. I wondered: if those beautiful trees, or the very earth that soldiers were ostensibly protecting could whisper to them who had died, would they try to console?

 Homecoming to farm after war.

Opened by a round of shell how was he to know?
Father and Mother buried him
And then the ground and dark closed in

But the banksias crouched over him
And his sister came with seeds of heath
Who grew their blooms to softly whisper:
“Epicaris impressa, I grow tall and slender
White against the sky.”
 And “correa reflexia”, chant the native fuchsia
“My brown-furred leaves to warm you
In the cold ground to adorn you
We of roots can never die”

          (common flat pea over me I lie and lie and lie)

And his shell, his very bones are crumbling
The grasses grow and hiss
The years as steady as the drip
Of the yard tap, where Bubby plays and grows, waits then goes.
Daddy coughs and spits then goes…

 And he of earth in earth won’t know
That Mum is forced to sell
That Sissy moves to town with Aunty Mavis,
And marries well…

I could get used to

Being on hols and celebrating
Patting the cats until they love me like mad and become wonderful
Eating food I’ve cooked from my new tome: ‘Kitchen’ by Nigella Lawson.
Riding my bike that has finally been fully repaired
Having café coffee every day for half an hour at least
Going to the beach, or being at home, or ….

Things from my ‘box of pretties’.

I have in my mind a ‘box of pretties’. They are little gifts to me, and tend to be a bit like that old jewellery inherited by nanna. I know they are sometimes truly precious and at other times cheap tat. They are in my box because they are gold and pearls, emeralds and moonstone, ephemeral and true.
You could not open the box of pretties; they are intangible and only mine.
In my box
Getting the coveted yellow crayon on day three of prep. I made the sun!

Staying with Aunty Shirl and Uncle Ian and their four kids when I was five and Mum and Dad went oversees: loud meals! Children everywhere! Splooshy shared baths! Custard for dessert! Bunk beds!

A youth called Otis in my first car (yellow 1974 Volvo) stroking my thigh in 1989, parked outside the Metro on Russell Street, and groaning aloud.

My first wanted-positive pregnancy stick, in a flat in Elsternwick, three days after buying my first home with Chris: she was Violet-in-an-instant and she was GRAND!

Being on the library desk at StKilda when a very old Jewish man said quite suddenly “oh your eyes”. I felt very caught, and vulnerable, and just said ‘what?’ He kept my gaze and replied: “they are so big, and so sad”. I had just the week before miscarried my second, and I thought I had hid it so well, and his human-ness made me come undone in secret toilet-tears. But I felt such kindness.

Saying, “I’m so pleased to meet you” when the nurses laid a weird and bloody little alien across my chest almost three years ago.

A kiss under the fort in a park, a while ago now, but when I shouldn’t have. O- sweet cliché: the rain, a near stranger, some small talk, our moment: wet wool and murmurs.

An inscription in a poetry book by a man I held dear and would never touch.

Being allowed to make the Napolitana sauce for my Italian neighbours children; they turned up red-rimmed smiles to say ‘yummy’.

Holding my old cat’s paw, stroking him and telling him how loved he was as he passed on. And that same cat aged one ‘combing’ my very-long hair with those same paws while a fire crackled in the old room: OUCH!
:

I sat down to write with a small jewel-box in the lap of my mind. But it GROWS. Everything I write begets more treats for the box. As Dr Seuss would say in ‘Green Eggs and Ham’: “try it you’ll like it, try it you will see”

What would be in your box-of-pretties?