A Mother’s Thoughts
Jackie Fairlie
When the unrest is over…
Who will blossom from the damage inflicted?
Who will whisper the words that remove despair?
Who will rebuild the same that was torn down?
Who will again have the right to copy
the revolving door we continue to accept?
Who will deliver the simple love?
Who will kneel down and hug the child in the dirt?
How will we look up and see in a million stars
that the earth is our magical planet harbouring our souls?
Who will grow small sustainable crops that feed without waste?
We keep walking under the ladder of power.
Isn’t that bad luck?
Solitary Confinement
Sarah Clay
In my van with its whizz-bang door
I sit enclosed by a cloying clag of fog
that squelches my spirit and murks my mind.
There’s something sinister in its seeping slimy smell
and I struggle to stay calm.
no-sound become threatening
no-place, bereft
no-one slides from solitude to isolation.
What if? becomes a monster to release from thought
before it emerges as a howling hysteria.
Breathing as calmly as I can
I scan myself from top to toe,
lengthening my exhale.
Feeling slightly safer
but…What if? sneaks back
then I wonder with wonder,
but what if it soon lifts to life
and the world comes back again? .
Travelling by Train…
Margy McLoughlin
En route from Sydney
via Newcastle to Forster
on the New South Wales Coast
as train and rain and water
wash away the dust
like a cleaning brush –
nature’s windscreen wipers,
and we gallop along
at a leisurely pace.
And I still can’t forget
the immensity
of overflowing waters,
rivers, dams and creeks.
My home state is full of dust
and yet here, this oasis,
like an Eden falling from the sky
filling and brimming over the top.
Lush green vistas
soak up my eyes
as the train snakes its way
swallowing the horizon.
This is our land
of drought and flooding rains.