Feeling stupid after an email conversation, I go out to exercise the dog. The oval lies over-sheened with western sun. Light billows like a sheet, particulate and all-pervasive until I shade my eyes. The dog scoots, mostly ignoring the ball which I throw for my own exercise, walking on and to pick it up and … Continue reading Warp & Weft
We stand by the school gate, pasted around with framed faces. She is talkative. He is European. And the other one is mostly silent, somewhat of a black sheep. I feel like a black sheep too, not even daring to hope for happiness. I lean against the fence, my aching hips and the how-to-vote cards … Continue reading Election Day
Unsheathed from its special box - Japanese steel, sworled and beautiful... and there! The pumpkin cubes easily, orange blocks forming a chopping-board city. Shush shush shush, the mushrooms fall into slivers which are scraped into the baking tray atop the pumpkin, and zucchini pieces topple in too, green-backed moons. Top and tail beetroots, the whiskered … Continue reading Dinner
In the yard that used to be for the cats, I provide shelter for one tiny chicken. It scampers between my feet like it would with its real mother, and I must watch my every step. It’s growing feathers at a rapid rate and knows how to clean them and how to take dust baths … Continue reading Chick ‘n’ Chirrup
Einstein In the south we’re faking it with an electric spring, bulb bright and crumbed with sawdust. To cheep feels like love and so we huddle over the warm box, giving lonely little Einstein our eyes, fingers, food, and the chickiest noises we can utter. Jerry from ACT Wellness rings to see how we’re coping … Continue reading Growing up cute…
Across the Sky On the couch, drenched in a purple sleeping bag, my daughter mutters “brothers these days!” and I have to agree. He’s a good ‘un, full bottle on the button pressing and unruffled as blue sky. I join in the niggling, first on her side, then on his and we finish all smiling … Continue reading Twiglet #273
Near the music school on Monday evening, the great oaks, arms as thunderous as Thor’s, are still mainly green. Sometimes a leaf drifts down, swooping from side to side to land, light and bright, on the damp grass. A man walks by, bent awkwardly from some medical cause, in a baseball shirt several sizes too … Continue reading A Monday in March
Write about the weather in Present Tense These last few days, everyone is saying “Thank goodness for the sun!” People are stretching like cats, long skin and whiskers pleased. It’s true the summer has been a wet one. Canberra wringing in a wet towel, warmth like dogs breath fogging up the sky. Mosquitoes are having … Continue reading #Go Dog Go Haibun Wednesday
As my eyes open to the grey stocktake of another morning, I wonder “Is it all still true?”. It’s not really hope but it still hurts when it goes away. I tell myself that I understand the facts. I drum the story like fingers on a desk. But even in the face of loss, only … Continue reading Mind Tricks
When we reached the trig station, I took a wrong turn. We headed down a ridge, winding out of the trees and into land that must’ve once been pine forest but was cleared at least a few years ago. It was now full of purple-green blackberry mounds, stringy little saplings, the splayed denuded heads of … Continue reading My Morning
Out of the Cave 