J is for jetty

(jetty: n. a small wharf.)
[wharf: a structure built on the shore of, or projecting
out into, a harbour, stream etc so that vessels may be
moored alongside to load or unload or to lie at rest; a
quay]
{quay: an artificial landing place for vessels
loading or unloading cargo}
(pier: a structure built out into the water
to serve as a landing place for ships)

We are there, we two sisters and a brother
in our jumpers in the boat you'd need to row.
The landing place is the flood-hollowed
river bank, below what's now called
the Terry Tinkler Reserve. In the 1950's
it was the place for stilt-legged water tanks
(every household owned one) and fishing.

We are perched on the boat's rims; it's
a plain boat, for rowing and catching redfin.
We are wearing jumpers so it is winter, but
the water is low, the carved banks not wet.
Where were the floods that year, in the cold
season? And whose boat is it, so clearly
a rowing boat, high and dry, in a riverbend

without a jetty? I must ask my mother.
Who now bumps around the house
as if she's in a coracle of pain. The legs,
she says, when they go ... We jolly her
along. It's the mind that matters, Mum,
we say: just keep doing your crosswords.
When we venture weekly to the shops

I create safe harbours for her, legs planted
firmly, elbow offered like a solid bollard.
(Naut. a vertical post on which hawsers
are made fast) The next memorable photo
is of Mum, thirty-six years old, the terylene
suit, hair a dark helmet, striding towards us
on the new Barmah Bridge, the punt retired.

All this before speed boats and fundraising
canoeists disturbed the waters. They flowed
as waters love to flow, gathering around
snags and sand bars, washing exposed roots
clean, transporting fish from mudbanks to
heaven or the hell of hooked betrayal. Now
those waters travel turgid, cautiously.

I'm on the pier with my son, and he's singing.
He sings to the rhythm of waves; he sings
into the wind, chooses notes from an unlikely
score. Ankles crossed fatly, eyelids half-closed
he is a seaside Pan, oblivious to audience. This
is my son's first known world; already he grows
like melaleuca: ragged, short covert bloomings

head raised to welcome the waves and wind.
I am thirty-five here. A decade later, photograph
the ribs and bones of  French Island pier, blue
on blue, light beyond shade, frames for dappled
seagrass-bedded Westernport. It seems there is
no safe anchorage; I have moved, migrated, set
feet on many wharves, been cargo, packed and

lifted above the waters, left high and dry along
the courses of water, set down where landscape
is foreign, changed by flood or tsunami, driven
to lie at rest. I have sat with friends, legs dangling
on the ends of our tolerance, I have strolled to take
the measure of these artificial walkways. The timber
comes from deep within old growth forests, holds.

Off the Cuff 30: Meditations on Letting Go & Gratitude

APAD 30    prompt: "letting go"

Meditations on Letting Go


1.
Low weak sun insists
we let go of summer
let winter squeeze through
curtain gaps.

2.
Last night, driving,
my father's hands reaching
through time's curtain; I still
regret not being there
to hold them.

3.
And where is my daughter
going? Come back, my hands
implore, stay young, stay
home, stay smiling.
She massages my head
and hands. She smiles.
And yet, she is going.

4.
My worst nightmare
involved being on high dry land

hundreds of feet above ground
all around me the drop:

I would stop the fall through
sheer will. Why not let go?

5.
Why not let go?
Regret makes you
slow. To be fast
don't fasten, hasten
just let go
of the past.
Good advice to self
so often shelved.

6.
My mother tells me
the newspaper reports
at least one hundred and seventy
people, mostly women, of course
aged over the century are
alive in our state, Victoria.
My mother, almost eighty-four
aims to reach the dizzy heights
not let go of life, be
one of the select
to reach her centenary, and like
Agave americana, bloom again.

7,
Ferns and herbs renew.
Birth, maturity, death
for the rest of us.


Gratitude

you, plump
artefact of desire
you over-ripe melon
you soft sac:
so happy I didn't
lose you to
surgeon's cuts
happy to feel you
floppy survivor
feel your painful
reminders yet
feel the lack of
weight, absence
which makes my heart
grow fonder
feel free to take you
to bed, free
of the fear
breast
cancer bred.

 NaPoWriMo  30

Off the Cuff 27: Here's Hoping and The Game

APAD 27     prompt: 2 for Tuesday - a hopeful poem or a hopeless poem

Here's Hoping

When will come the day
human beings do what they say?
Yes, know how to play it:
that to create is to say it.

A universal commitment
to honouring our word?
How absurd! But this game
is all we've got - it's the box,
the dice, the lot!

Imagine placing your word
on the board, have it heard,
and the time that you'll keep it
we'd just get a peep at

the power of trust, freedom, respect
and the rewards all of us collect.


The Game

How was your Games Day?
I ask my Mum. Good! she says
brightening. She says only Pat came
to play the Scrabble. I say, Great.

I don't ask: Did you win?
I say: Must dash off to work
(what a jerk!)
I add: Must go because I'm
leaving early today, for choir.

Her face perplexed.
My communication sets a standard
for osmotic thought she should
just ignore.

Better we stick to words
that interlock, or
better still, run side by side,
adding up to a Good Score.


NaPoWriMo 27