Bags The Back Seat .
I like it up the back. Where I can see without them looking. Explore heads and collars. The strings of puppets. Sit unfrozen in a seat unworn. Read the whispers. Tip toe away when I want to go home.
(Originally from ‘Rock The Boat’ series. Now in Clunk & Jam book, 2019)
When I was a little girl I played hide and seek and got lost. Now I’ve found myself again I want to stand on a box and sing into a spoon. Peer into draws not meant to be opened. Draw and scribble and make mistakes. Catch bubbles before they break. Do loud burps. Swing on the clothes line. Lick my fingers and stay up late. Undress hibiscus flowers. Pull funny faces. Throw sand. Stay forever in a hug. Smell everything. Jackets and boots. Hair and skin. Wear bare feet. Watch people, even when they’re looking. Hang upside down on the monkey bars. Make a mess. Squat on rocks and spot crabs in the cracks. Giggle and snort. Do handstands and cartwheels. Play dress ups. Be naughty and cheeky and silly. Run really, really fast and have big soft sand to fall into.
(Picture of Mum as a little girl. Originally in ‘Rock The Boat’ handmade book, now in Clunk & Jam book, 2019)
Off My Wave .
There is nothing to warrant celebration within the realm of the pain and suffering of others. No badge to be pinned by those who, with all good intention, fly the flag for those of us who suffer conditions of mind and circumstances of life that test our will to live.
Look to those of us who’ve been turned away for solutions to prevent our end, for only we know what helps to soothe the hurting and raise the eyelids to hope.
We lie unnoticed in the shadows of those with the loud voices, the big campaigns, the egotistical solutions they devise to resolve our painful existence – offer us light.
Those who live in brightness do not see, feel and understand the beauty and sense of consolation the darkness offers those who ride its wave.
Talk you may, but in a whisper that is sensitive to the shame we feel, the secrets we carry, and the space within which our hurting souls cling.
Where we swing between the end and being offered some surprising, warm, kind thing upon which to be gently lifted from our descent, and openly embraced in all our sorrow and sadness.
(Lithograph by Thomas Hart Benton titled, ‘Goin’ Home’, 1937 from Lapham’s Quarterley Magazine Winter 2012.)
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Wrote The Black Dog Story on a car body in the desert in the middle of Australia, on the Great Central Road.
(From Clunk & Jam book pictured bottom centre.)
Home So Sweet .
There was a fine woman, who opened a fine house, that fed appetites lost from patches laced with weathering sticks – woven by hand and time. She offered a piece of her welcoming world and a heart rich like the earth she lovingly engraved. A home full of sweet delights. Where black felt bows and creamy cloth wrap around you like a shawl and cocoon the soul so snug. Where the rush to do, to see, to be, is held effortlessly still by orchard, earth and sky. And moments seem so endlessly full, they linger like a week. And when it’s time to go, you know you never really leave. For when the mind now wanders far or night does suddenly fall, memories of stars never so bright that cast a dome of wonder over such a rare and precious place – keep friendships fresh and memories forever close.
Find in ‘Clunk & Jam‘ book. Ruth’s farm, Yallingup Western Australia.
Comes and Goes .
This condition of mind. It comes. And it goes. And it comes back again. So if I have nothing right now. What do I have? The knowledge that it comes. And it goes. And it comes back again ….
Footnote: There’s something deeply consoling about the notion of endlessness. It’s the opposite of being STUCK. And the understanding that things come and go. And if you replace the ‘condition of mind’ with … good and bad times; anxiety and fear; happiness; sadness, grief, despair; relationships; worries and so on – it is the transient (cyclic) nature of things that provides reassurance for getting through – coming out the other side.
(Clunk & Jam book 2019. Art by Harley Manifold, original in colour)
