1. Garden
All afternoon God is streaming
in the sunlight
casting his 4 o’clock golden ash
over the lawn
When he lies across the hibiscus
her body spreads
2. Forest
The pea-hen is writing
her story on the brown floor
The wombat is asleep in
the ground level of his grand tree-house
A paper wasp glides over
smooth water pebbles
A pair of rosellas
float out of the air
Look, the wattle
has shed her melancholy
even the kookaburras sound
less pugnacious
And there is little more that I want
than to be beautiful as a leaf
3. Kitchen
The chard’s
crayon stems
the parsnip’s
white fingers
Swede, bok choy, zucchini
peppers
I come home and place
everything on the bench:
broccoli, mushrooms, beans
blueberries like midnight
papaya in their Asian skin, the
laughing, sun-kissed grapes
4. Heart
That day, in the sun, my father
lay cold and broken in
my mother’s arms, the tenant
he’d had an altercation with
looking on. My mother shouted
strangers gathered
the ambulance came
the ambulance took mum and dad away
What does it feel like to hold death in your hands
as if it were a cup, or a fruit
What does it feel like to hold death in your hands
as if it were an infant, a shirt, or earth
What does it feel like to hold death in your hands, as if
you. were. still. alive.
Exquisite, Vera, writing at its crafted best
‘..beautiful as a leaf’
Yes!
Big Hugs
john
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Thank you so much, John. It’s so good to hear from you.
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Deeply, deeply beautiful on a number of different levels.
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🙂 Thank you so much, Nico, means a lot to me.
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Blessings. 🙂
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You took me on such a winding, beautiful journey and then….Lord. “Exquisite” is the right word. ❤️
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Thank you, Katy!
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Absolutley. 🙂
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