i waited for you to speak
but you failed to utter a single word
not even an explanation was given
you just left
without letting me
know the reason behind your leaving

You are so dynamic, darling
I fear your flames
might be raging too fiercly.
You are a fireworks display.
The light and noise
can astound, and dazzle
but you spread yourself too thin.
I would rather you focused
on the blindingly beautiful bursts
you show me every so often,
than burn your fuse at both ends
and bury your gorgeous sky flowers
under barrages of bottle rockets.
I understand that your displays
are not crafted for me alone.
But, I know the spark
 buried inside you
and it is that fire than ignites my desire,
but the packs of jumping jacks
you toss at my feet
only serve to distract me
from your far more brilliant offerings.
I know I cant afford the ticket,
but either way, I will watch the show
from the other side of the tracks.
And launch one of my mortars
like a sympathetic shout
whenever I can do so,
without sacrificing my own sound.

It is longer spring here
down at the bottom of the world
(if I were being truthful
at the very bottom of the world
spring is a mere matter of degrees)

Here in the land of Oz
we are in Autumn,
yet driving today,
the sunshining through
the last  of the clouds and
the waratahs red and vibrant
competing with the yellow
sunshine cascading drops
of the wattles , all outdone by
the bougainvilleas with their
bursts of deep, deep purple

the smell of lemon myrtle and eucalypt,
giving a zinging zest to the air
you could well believe that
nature did not get the memo...

On Turning Sixty-One**

Fitzgerald’s last line;
longing, lovingly

rendered in fourteen
words, ode

to inevitability
in any tongue.

“So we beat on”,
aching,

“boats against the current”,
our urgent

she bu de!,
she bu de!/

I can’t bear
to let go!,

“borne back”
on music

in the Latin,
de mihi tempus/

give me more
time.  

Songs echo
“ceaselessly into the past.”

it is true
that until
some one
has gone from you
you do not know how will
miss them...

i miss sitting quietly
with you after a day's work
tea cups in hand, savouring
the fragrance of smoky tea
and the silence that comes
from a deep sense of compainionship

I miss, coming upon you sitting on a bench
face turned toward the sun, hands spread wide
i  an act of joyful worship, a smile lighting up
your face,

I miss the itense look of concentration, as you
described a new thought or concept to others
and the loosed limbed wonder of you as you
came alive upon the stage....

the generosity of heart and spirit,
your allocentricity...

all these things i miss and more
and most days I find some new
thing that I miss...

but...
my missing you
is a living elegy

I miss most
the sound of your voice in my ear
...but I hear the echoes
that tell me....
you are stronger than this
....just breathe on through
and wait
for the sun to shine for it will, it will