#2305 - sixteen years

 

2305

7.112

23.iv.26

sixteen years

 

according to my super fund

I have sixteen years

 

it’s not at first obvious

they’re not drawing attention to it

it’s just a flower on the graph

 

time’s brisk!

friends will be dropping like flies

I was relying on them for a funeral

 

I don’t think they want me to notice

it’s a question of calculation, that’s all

 

nothing subjective

 

they take no account of the creature’s habits

nature, of bliss

 

ye know not the hour, nor they

there is no deity does

 

it’s not the me I know they measure

 

why should I worry?

I do

 

sixteen years!

mend bridges, grow another tree

novels, plays, epics to write

have to paint my way out of the maze

spark up

I have a fire to catch

 

it’s not that I had a concrete plan for immortality

it was more in the way of an assumption

lack of a Plan B, you could say

 

corner of the eye thing moves

 

they’re not suggesting religion, health spa

boot camp, meditation

 

next or former lives

 

no midway dark woods

nor letter to post

 

can they even scent my track

see the leaves fall

know this rain

 

and what flower is it?

can you guess?

 

it’s virtual

then let death be

 

I suppose that they ought to know

we bury the treasure here

 

 

 

 

postscript

 

I looked again today

hoping I could grab a graphic

failed

and anyway they’ve changed it

I’ll have to describe it for you

now it’s a heart kind of floating above two open hands

and great news!  they’ve given me a couple of extra years

it’s mysterious … it’s like they’re not superstitious enough to say soul

and anyway there’s no graphic for that

but I see now that those hands are

letting the heart away

and looking again

I suppose the idea is more like that those hands

will catch the falling heart

 

#2304 -- bringing in the sheaves

 

2304

7.111

22.iv.26

bringing in the sheaves

 

walk out the door with nothing

 

I love it that the rain

on a day like this

 

but it is unlasting

 

music to pursue

 

pick up a stone from just where we lie

 

a little wilt shows season

 

trip-idiom

we mine it here

 

squeeze drips from a rag of sky

 

have to get head out of jumper somehow

 

brickwork and by blow down sticks

 

take it to the top of the head

 

I work with just what’s  

 

plod on, plod

 

it’s all so as to wonder

what if another star struck

            broad daylight

 

what if the gods would show 

#2303 -- this one place

 

2303

7.110

21.iv.26

this one place

 

we all live

call it chamber, casket, mansion

trust!

 

walls years thick inscribed

 

mean it

 

gravy stains, beast yet to roar

instance inkling now

 

every voice that was

echoing air

 

say ever

such is the traffic of self

 

the fancy

 

the languages that I have been

since when I was a tree

you too

 

time having been once

fixed to the wall

 

now travels

a grief to guess

 

and trusting

must needs

 

mean

say

ever

and there’s your day

 

what’s in the box

but where we are?

 

place naked

such shadows creep

 

lead dreaming off

call corridors, call alleys

 

grime gleam

by hunch

 

things lost and we revive them

 

the light comes on after all

must trust

 

we’re woken to the signs

 

words telling over words before

words and the image spent

 

under the only roof

 

astray

and all at home

only heaven there is

 

trusting

must needs

 

here to be found

 

what’s written that night

won’t be read

#2302 -- there’s never any mail anymore

 

2302

7.109

20.iv.26

there’s never any mail anymore

 

objects arrive

wrapped things

no mail

 

there are waves

mysterious waves

 

it’s Sunday

keeps washing in

 

a box by the side of the road

the sky shakes

 

I am getting the message

 

thin air

I think that they are listening too

 

are from a great distance

 

it’s not to say that nothing’s been posted

 

they lick at the envelope back

           at the stamp

 

these are all forms of possession

 

it’s as if the letters were out there

the wish of them

 

as if they’d been sent

sent long since

in a blue moon once

in Bush Week

 

always Sunday now

nothing’s delivered

 

it’s as if they’d been posted

mid forest

a cloud stood

 

where are trees now?

 

somehow the future was always too far

 

like light from a hitherto unnamed galaxy

 

will the arrow fall short?

some barren world?

 

no, the arrow still flies

 it never fails

 

eyes were better

stars were bright

 

it was a penny to everywhere then

 

I like the map of Australia

I like the kangaroo

 

asleep in my chair in the afternoon

I dream that a letter’s arrived

#2301 -- the travel of clouds and a stillness

 

2301

7.108

19.iv.26

the travel of clouds and a stillness

 

wouldn’t even know it had rained

 

dark, still guessing

 

might have been the wind

 

fruit hangs where it’s ours to catch

             or will

 

does a wallaby even know there are fences?

 

they are subliminal, sublime

 

look up, along or at your feet

 

wouldn’t know a world was turning

 

music meant for us

 

could almost sing

 

you wouldn’t believe it’s today today

you wouldn’t believe it’s today