Reminiscences (1975, Townsville)

Earthen fields, cloudy skies,
a pussy willow dipping in the wind
and a leaf on a stream limping wistfully by.

Starry night, filled with life,
the mystery of the universe;
a revelation now in sight.

Sea spray, lingering on,
while banks of sand rise majestically
whistling with the wind's song.

Quiet water, deep and silent secrets
hide on the aquamarine depths,
understood only by its denizens.

A snowflake tumbling slowly to the ground,
first sign of winter whiteness
which blankets the earth around.

Morning (19.ix.1975, Townsville)

The soft tendrils of morning
reached tenderly
towards the starred sky,
groping through the darkness
the light pushed on silently.

A will-o-wisp fire smoke
danced upon the dawn,
sweet plants opened dewy eyes
amongst a fragrant lawn.

The hushed spirit
soared through the trees
gently whispering and murmuring life
into creation slumbered in sleep.

The bird rose from the grass,
a dove in complexion
with the smoothest whirring flutter of white
announced the new day -
awake, awake,
Abba is here!

From My Window (13.ix.1975, Townsville)

Through the green leaves
tossed with wind
and crossed with light,
red tiles of roof
in a ring of verdant brown
crowned with a cross of white
haloed with light,
beneath which
sombre men in their monastery
pass the hours with an endless Rosary
and prayers to Heaven on their pious breath
with a quiet joy of their risen Saviour,
watching the world go by.

Silent stone,
cold polished floor squeaks with shoes,
everything like a tableau scene from a book;
time gives the intruder an icy stare.

Yet, there is warmth,
warmth and fire in the hearts of men
brimming with kindness
within the walls of lonely silence.

Warmth and fire;
man-made rules have broken them
since they were sanctified to God
as Chosen men.

My Earth (4.ix.1975, Townsville)

My Earth,
how you labour silently,
under blazing sun and silver moon,
straining, toiling,
nourishing your children
who reach towards the sky.

From you we have come,
to you we return,
as a sighing leaf
grows from the earth
and finally flutters to the ground.

When you sing, I am happy,
I find joy in you;
to run among your green pastures
but equally your rocky crags
jagged against the horizon.

Yet when you are sad,
when tears of rain bathe your wounds,
seared into your consciousness
by a self-willed hand,
I understand, my Earth.

Presence d'espirit (28.iv.1975, Townsville)

Mists of time on unknown miles,
silver moon, quintessent dusk,
memories of fruitfulness do not crumble into dust
but live alive to quicken still,
broodingly expectant as I am not alone.

Ever present, I stand in your shadow,
for miles apart can no more tear you from me than can time,
for thou art part of me
and being so can never be taken away
any more than the elusive darkness
can be separated from night
nor light the day.

So let it be
that thou art with me
all the days through trial and peril
and softened sunsets on a peaceful world;
and as the wind bends saplings to make them strong,
be my strength
and guard my days with your fire of life,
a quiet burning within
which seeks not to change
but to reforge the old to make it new.

Even though days may pass in endless succession
rushing blindly into what will come,
taking with them all our insecurities and fears
and knotting then into forebodings and portents,
I will not heed their latent misery,
for more than ever I am free
as within me there is the indestructible,
that which cannot be confined,
either by man's hand or his word,
being part of the infinite.

It is ever restless,
yet a bringer of peace within.
I need never fear the darkness,
for even then you are a candle
with an unquenchable flame
which burns brightly at my side,
impossible to extinguish.

Burn on ever light
so that the void beyond
will touch me not,
and that I may dwell forever
filled with your spirit,
at your side.

Loneliness (15.ii.1975, Townsville)

The blanket of greyened mist
seeps through the ethereal vision of light,
the world is submerged in a sea of darkness,
separate, discorporate from existence.

Humanity is there; living, thriving, breathing,
but in its zest it forgets
those who pass as silent ghosts amongst it.

They hide unto themselves
their cries, their hunger, their pangs,
what they know alone and need alone;
despite the surface gayness and abandonment,
something moves within and desires that which is deeper.

Theirs is not the world of brashness,
for they care for the fragile poetry of the soul,
lifted aloft on gossamer wings
with the silent beauty of the sunrise;
a subtle tangible beauty exists in all that is,
through a creation endowed with the spirit of the universe.

Love of all
and rapturous joy
in sharing with those who know that joy,
yet here the lonely collect their shattered being
and go silently on as shadows
half-defined in the misty quintessence of dusk,
for the facades and restrictions of men
have kept their stony silence,
barren long of emotion.

Hope,
for that ethereal fleeting vision
of a moving closer
despite the ways of men,
and a confirmation of the truth
that joy is sorrow,
love is pain,
truth is beauty,
light is darkness.

In the blinding flash of realisation
the fragility of the soul
becomes the strength and peace of mind;
the seeds of destruction
grown in the shrine of loneliness
and grow into rich and mellowed fruitfulness.

Veni, vedi ... (27.vi.1975, Townsville)

(For Fr. Mick and the Mundingburra Presbytery)

Through the window
crossed in the shape of gold,
echoed by dull lead,
surrounded by white,
reflecting the light
with wings of red
and crown of blue;
a purple vision basking
under halo of leaves of green,
sunlit by a silver cascade of water,
silently the rivulets drop to the ground,
like exquisite jewels acknowledging Creation.
The flowered hue of purple
lifts and droops its head
to the rhythm of the marching water.
The sun refracts amongst the acquiescence;
Earth rejoices of a presence.

Genesis II (27.vi.1975, Townsville)

Nothingness;
an expanse of darkness
stretching to all ends of the universe;
out of a primeval fiery soup came stars,
lighting and burning their way to prominence,
and vortices of angry gases
whipped and whistled their way
through the half-light.

Into a cooling dreamtime
of fluid skies lit with purple
and molten land
was born the planet Earth;
barren, void, fruitless,
caught in the grip of a powerful and haughty sun.

Time upon time,
spinning, spinning,
going nowhere in the conclusion
of prescribing an endless circle.

Dead,
the fire in the sky;
its ghost danced on blue ashes:
Creation hung waiting.

Moonlight on a peaceful Earth
of graceful seas and subdued land,
Creation hung waiting.

A single spark to come;
Creation hung waiting.

A blinding flash,
quintessence of dust and
essence of quicksilver;
flame leaping sharply into the ever-starred sky;
unquenchable,
eternal as its maker,
life stood naked.

Genesis (12.iv.1975, Townsville)

Written for the Pimlico State High School film “Under the Summer Sun”.
Freedom! I am alive to enjoy the world,
alone to bask in its sunlit glory,
for each and every one life is special;
as the wind blowing over the grass bends
each stem differently.

I am me, I am no other,
and being so my oneness is unity,
and in unity there is no end,
so then I delight in walking alone in my world.

I am the wind, bending the grass,
soaring free to rustle the leaves of the trees;
I am the clouds, lazing dreamily
under the summer sun;
I am as the horse,
galloping amongst the green pastures of being,
secure in the love of my master.

Then, I am lost - the light has gone;
where are the joys I held and their beauty?
Gone, spoilt, as if a rose were to crumble to dust.

I must despair,
for there is no sun to light the day;
an eternal darkness covers the world;
there is no hope – its kindling fire has died out.

Perhaps I see a dim light at the end of the tunnel of darkness,
the future comes untouched by the sorrow of the past,
people in their frailty of body have a strength of mind,
a faith to make you live again,
they are there when you need their presence to support;

I am no longer blind to see:
the past is gone;
the future comes;
let it be.

Time (1974, Townsville)

A soft passing melody,
ethereal, infinite, encompassing all,
a flowing medium with no beginning and no end,
intertwined with space; another dimension.

An era passes,
I feel a sad, sweet melancholy,
time has locked his gates behind us,
the future beckons us as the past fades to obscurity.

We must go forward,
we are carried headlong in the rushing stream;
a raging, rising, falling torrent,
with a profound temperament of its own.

Loneliness, for we are a part of life, yet alone.
Time talks to each as an individual,
trapped in his swirling mists,
masking the world and all others.

Feeling, emotion are heightened,
the universe unfolds before us,
no longer a mystery, inconceivable and beyond comprehension,
we are a oneness in ecstasy with life; time grows distant.

Discovery,
time is a vast ocean of which life be the shores,
barely touched upon, awed in silent reverence
for the majesty of the changing waves.

If we understand, then time is on our side.
Life, love, people are no longer complexities,
they are revealed in startling simplicity,
ever-changing yet defined kaleidoscopes of colour.

Sunrise, sunset, a timeless unison,
for them time does not exist.
Moonrise, moonshine, cycles of perpetual motion,
unchanged through countless aeons.

There is a hope,
that we may join with and share in the infinite,
dimensional boundaries fading, disappearing,
as we the slaves become the masters of our own destiny.

Crystal images become reality and then fade,
the set pattern of creation is indestructible,
the search for soul and insight is behind us,
where time reigns as master.

Light (23.v.1974, Townsville)

There is but one of me,

shine, light so I may see,

I know the mystery

of life will come to me.

I will understand

man’s hidden hand.

I don’t have to try

to reach mind to the sky,

for there soul is free,

free for reality to be.

Growing Up … (3.iii.1974, Townsville)

I leave children’s voices far behind,

empty shadows in my mind.

Gone is the time when I was one,

now my thoughts reach to the sun.

The mystery of life unwinds,

veiled by intricacies of time.

I see clearly far behind

trials and torments of the mind;

there is now identity,

and now I am most truly free.

Moonrise … Moonshine (3.viii.1973, Townsville)

Your colour is your magnificence,

your beauty is your unerring light

which shows a path to we who love you

in a world with too few paths to happiness.

For this, we thank you.

A hope that you will shine upon us time immemorial

to light the way and serve us

even when we need you not,

for your beams in a starry blackness

are the essence of life filled with beauty

all around us if we will only look.

To feel the peace of mind and harmony

which emanates from you.

Fragile moonlight, light on light,

clothed in gold or shining white.

Sunrise, Sunset (1973, Townsville)

The sun rises on a cold and mystical world,

not yet formed into crystalline reality;

still smudged and blurred with pale dripping colours.

Fogged by a shadowy half-light

an arc of colour lifts itself over the horizon

and in its majestic throes, the sun emerges.

Day becomes clear.

As day passes through its never-ending cycle

the shadows grow longer and the landscape

takes on a hue of dying yellow.

The clouds turn magnificent shades of indigo,

yellow, pink, orange and purple

as dusk rears his sleepy head.

The sun sinks lower into its blanket of night.

Its last golden rays give a luminous glow to the sky.

The half-light returns,

giving the same definition of infinity to all around.

Silently, the world melts into darkness;

the starry blackness created by sunset,

which by magic becomes sunrise.

A Walk in the Summer Rain (1973)

On your own,

misty blues on misty miles,

silent shadowy curtain of soft velvet rain

evokes thoughts of near and dear,

happy or sad;

a walk in the summer rain

profound, refreshing, wonderful.

With another, joyous rush and tumble through falling torrents,

laugh away the grey

soaked to the skin is fun

why do without it;

relax in the sheer ecstacy

a walk in the rain is summer.

On its own,

falling softly

maybe silently

trickling down windows and valleys alike

refreshing the parched land;

the land offers its thanks by singing

the song of the summer rain;

every blade of grass and leaf of tree

can never be still while it is free.

Summer, Sun and Sand (1972, Townsville)

It’s impossible to tell

what wild overwhelming urge

drives daring, debonair, dashing youngsters

to summer, sun, sand and water.

Rollicking, rushing, rumbling waves,

crashing, curling, crumbling to the sand;

kings of kinky coloured surfboards ride the crests,

laughing, lolling, fooling around.

All shades of summer sunny hair,

blonde, brown, brunette and black,

waving in the wild whipping whistling wind

colouring the candy collection of the bikini-clad.

Our Sunburnt Country (1972, Townsville)

The sun shines down hard and blistering hot on a young country,

a country ever old-young.

An ochre land, quiet, inscrutable, filled with reluctant secrets.

The inhabitants of this dry, parched land stand burnt

brown as the drifting desert sands.

They have lived in this no-man’s land as long as the

oldest man can remember

persevering through steadfast indifference.

Only as the shadows grow long

does the land soften and mellow.

Trees grow stunted by wind and dryness;

they offer but the meanest cover to the meanest man.

Desert sands sprawl in the searing sun,

pitted with the windswept prints of animals;

here the land yields but rare, stark, solemn pools of water

for all the creatures who live in bitter extremity.

Leached by the sun,

changeless is this pitiless country.

Midnattssol (1972)

The sun sets high in the western sky

but never dips below the horizon aglow;

The golden body circles around

the softly coloured landscape,

its hue lighting the sand to a full ripe

orange of pomegranate;

A wind rises, a wave ripples,

and falls upon the shore,

softly, softly brings its treasure

to rest upon the golden shore,

emerging within the softly muted

purple forest’s reach.

Dipping low at Midnight’s height,

the light dies slowly in a reddish glow,

but the smooth calm sea

knows that the sun will rise

from its midnight low, and once again

set the shores alight

with a fiery glow.