Wednesday 14 December 2011

Missing

MISSING

Today I missed you. I missed you yesterday too, but today I missed you more. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was because it was raining. Early this morning the sun was shining but then it clouded over and started to drizzle. The soft misty rain continued for most of the day. It stopped for a short time around mid-day, so I went to sit in the garden under the autumn tree and ate my cheese sandwich. But just as I finished eating it started to rain softly, and softly rain so I went back inside and stared out the window for a while. I listened to my new Nick Cave CD. I played it three times and then I decided to take my dog for a walk. The air outside smelled fresh and the rain on my face mixed with tears of missing you. Some days I miss you more than others – it’s hard to know why that is really. Missing you is a hard thing to quantify. I guess it’s just that some days ache more than others. Later, when I came back from my walk I played Nick Cave again. The phone rang once and for some reason I thought it might be you, but of course it wasn’t.  It was still raining softly and softly raining at tea time, but it didn’t matter because I wasn’t going out anywhere. I decided to skip dinner and sat down and watched the news and the weather report. Apparently it will be raining again tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.

Today I missed you and I will miss you tomorrow and all the days after that and all the days after that.

Published Tamba December 2009



Sunday 11 December 2011

Poetry

Yesterday I attended a launch of a collection of poetry. The poet, Tru Dowling,  asked me to read one of her poems at the launch.

I got to thinking about what attracts a person to a poem, a novel or a work of art. I think that it is often the resonance of a personal experience or emotion that draws a person to a  particular work.

The poem I chose to read  yesterday was Tru Dowling's Childess, a poem of intense loss but which contains within it the seed of hope.


Through  the poem's refrain I could hear the sound of a heart beat, the promise of new life and the potentiality of the future.

What the poem said to me was that sometimes you have to totally stuff in life to find your way, but the most important thing is to never, ever, give up.

I thought of the words of the poet Walt Whitman:
Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,
No birth, identity, form — no object of the world.
(Continuities)

Well done, Tru, for a fantastic collection - Memoirs of a Consenting Victim.