Sometimes the dance of words mirrors the dance of life and we call it Poetry, and sometimes it’s the other way round - events seeming to reflect things we have said to ourselves or others, or things we have written; not because we are prescient, but because there are patterns that repeat, and underlying truths we instinctively perceive and sometimes even articulate… and then the experience itself becomes the Poetry.

We are wired to look for patterns - that’s how we have survived. Living with hunter gatherers taught me that, at least…

So like all Poets I go out hunting myself, and gathering - images, experiences, sounds and scents. Joys and griefs too - my own and those of people I meet. Some will always be private, but the best will be prepared, presented, and now shared around this electronic campfire of bits and bytes that all of us huddle about, seeking warmth.

The natural world draws me and informs almost everything I write but I can’t ignore urban landscapes - these strange blends of the natural, the constructed and the simply left behind, all cold welded together in a hard amalgam, bedded down.

And when I’m in a city I’m always looking for the gaps in the joints, the unintended interstices where function fails and unexpected things happen; the places where things that are lost - and people too - can sometimes be found.

Some things are ugly. Some things are beautiful.

Many are both.

Crossing the park

I came across two

young men, hitting up.

They’d picked

a good day for it.

The sun was shining

on Throsby Creek with that fierce

benevolence

you only find

on a fine Summer’s day after rain.

The air was clear

as the blood in my veins.

The swings in the playground

were fraught with children

screaming in delight while

patient parents pushed

and caught and

placid pelicans sailed on

down the creek

regardless

through that bright air like the fleet of Spain

leaning into the trade wind,

content in knowledge of a new world.

The two young men sat

watching it all,

their backs to the brawl of Maitland road

their faces tilted to the sun.

They seemed companionable,

in their cargo pants and

matching blue checked shirts - almost

vulnerable,

sitting like that with outstretched legs

and a faint breeze ruffling their hair - like

overgrown dolls,

or teddy bears.

I didn’t mean to

stare but

I don’t think they saw me.

Their minds were on other things.

I barely noticed the needles

and would have passed by

except for a certain

delicateness

in the way they looked down,

hunched over slightly as the

fine steel slid home -

freighted with rare

spice from a far off land,

and all the

weight

that being separate brings.

I would not have known but

for the air of mutual

concern they exhibited -

which made me look closer

in time to see the needles withdrawn,

the rubbing of the arm,

the slight relaxation of the spine

as they sat back again

to watch a new sun,

new park,

new trees blossoming

and children playing such as

they had not seen for years,

except

in dreams of childhood.

I stood for a moment watching them,

already locked outside their scene

and insignificant,

and then walked on,

through park and sun and children

and all the clean blue waves of my own life

rippling out there on Throsby Creek

where the black industrial mud bubbles

quietly,

unseen and underneath.