Stories

February 10, 2013 - The Journey

The Journey. (By  Mary Oliver. ) 

December 16, 2012 - Black Promise

Black Promise .

We shall bake a black promise.

One that rises to fill every soul,

leaving no room for sticks and stones.

We shall sit at a table round and bare,

with no heads, no wooden spoons or cups to fill.

We’ll play games for no prizes,

make rainbows without green and red, black and blue.

We’ll shed tears and fears into a well so full

it forever flowed into holding hands,

as trees grew back tall around us,

and grass reached out lush and long,

holding us so high in endless respite

– there would be no end or beginning.

( Clunk & Jam book.)

November 6, 2012 - Tick Tock

Every Day Is Yours To Win .  (REM song from album ‘Collapse Into Now)

With the walk and the talk and the tick tock clock.  With the rock and the roll and the bridge and the toll.  With the brilliance and the light and the stink and the fight.  And the road ahead of you, I cannot tell a lie, it’s not all cherry pie.  But it’s all there waiting for you, yeah you.  With the warp and the wooze and the subterfuge, does it all look bitter and blue?  Well I’m nothing but confused with nothing left to lose and if you buy that, I’ve got a bridge for you.  Every day is new again.  Every day is yours to win.  And that’s how heroes are made.  I wanted to win.  So I said it again; that’s how heroes are made.

October 17, 2012 - Mystery Slot

The Woodbridge Post Office Lady .

I push it through.  A passing without meeting.  An intimate exchange.  Will she sniff where I’ve been?  Add another layer of touch?  A crease in the handling?  Hold its journey up for how long?

A tantalising story with its imaginary end.  Somewhere beyond the slot.   And to know would spoil this hush exchange.  The chance to build towards another.  And another.  Until the next.

Or maybe it just fell unnoticed into a bag?  My story tells me more.

Footnote:  Wrote this piece on holiday in Tasmania because I was posting postcards back home, and the friend I was staying with talked about this “Woodbridge post office lady” he’d come to know through his daily visits to collect and post mail.

September 14, 2012 - Shedding Skin on Sunset Beach

Shedding Skin On Sunset Beach .

A sleepy sun leaves buoys with faces to trace lingering steps on icing sugar sand, chilled by the late afternoon.    The chalky white drift of a pelican patch invites the mind to float, as a school tickles the surface and jetty sticks stretch long into the sound.   And when thought interrupts to say, “You know it won’t last”, and “Time is never so still”.   You take that moment back into a sandy pocket and leave the hurry behind.

(Picture from ‘World of Wonder’ book found on Ruth’s farm.  Find in Clunk & Jam book.)

September 13, 2012 - Sand Castles

Sand Castles .

A tide of words, only of mine, lap at an unwelcoming world.    And therein the rise and fall is the most masterful play for place.   Where, within its shallow strip, I catch my ‘self’.

(Find in Clunk & Jam book.)