At that fluid edge
I collect pieces
chips, fragments, remnants
insert randomly
create storm cloud pathways
a mosiac, familiar to me
The way forward
is the way back
diverting, mending
unpicking threads of thoughts
that bind tightly
loosening, discarding
letting go,
letting in
forging the path ahead
where I want to be
with clarity.
a dawn bird
In response to RDP – Saturday – The Path Ahead
River Gum
Wafer thin
creamy skin
hidden within
this fragile matriarch
alchemist
healer
songbird
whisper your secrets
confidante of the river
a dawn bird
In response to RDP – Thursday – Bark
It’s been a month of firsts. The first time of staying home for weeks on end and self imposed isolation, so the thrill of gaining essential worker status was genuine. I was needed in the Midwest and my ‘pass’ to move between restricted regions due to the COVID 19 lockdown meant I could travel again.
With limited flights I had to drive over 400 kms to Geraldton. I thoroughly enjoyed the drive with loud playlist for company. When stopped by the cops at checkpoint their laughter was genuine when I beamed and said I was travelling for work.
As we had to travel further north we had to fly in a small chartered plane. I was with two other colleagues and I was dreading it, but it turned out to be one of the best flights I have ever been on.
With autumn behind, all I can say is, move over winter … I’m ready for spring.
Until next time
As always
a dawn bird
In response to The Changing Seasons – May 2020
Somewhere in the Pilbara mining region, Western Australia
Iron earth
steel tipped boots
the softest footfalls
in my heart
a dawn bird
In response to RDP – Saturday – Outdoors
Like us, by chance
sand settles
into a slow dance
a dawn bird
In response to RDP – Friday – Settle
The little boy stood still and searched the sea
and in his eyes
the sea beckoned me
a dawn bird
Judy Dykstra Brown over in Lifelessons wants to know more in the second round of Nosy Questions! Join in the fun, if you dare!
I’m not sure how we continued a long distance relationship in those days, the days before email and FaceTime or Skype, but we did for two years. He sent me cassettes of him reciting poetry, songs that made him think of me and monologues to me in that wonderful Scottish voice.
He and Dr T were aware of each other’s presence in my life. I was struggling to make a decision when he sent me a cassette of the song by Matt Munro ‘Walk Away’, the lyrics:
Walk away, please go
Before you throw your life away
A life that I could share for just a day
We should have met some years ago
For your sake I say
Walk away, just go.
Walk away, and live
A life that’s full
With no regret
Don’t look back at me
Just try to forget
Why build a dream that cannot come true
So be strong, reach the stars now
Walk away, walk on.
If I heard your voice
I’d beg you to stay
So don’t say a word
Just run, run away.…
The song haunts me to this day.
Well, I’m done unwrapping.
Until next time
As always
a dawn bird
In response to Judy’s Nosy Questions #2
I’m home for less than 24 hours before heading out tomorrow, this time for a week. My handbag is stuffed with boarding passes. I haven’t even had time to clear my purse.
With little time in Perth and several tradies lined up for Saturday morning, my household shopping needed priority. I checked what time shops open and headed out ten minutes before expecting to sit in my car listening to music but parking was a problem. I could not believe the number of cars in the usually empty car park. That should have alerted me but I’ve been away so much I have no idea what’s happening in the city. I walked in. From my vantage point in the car I could not see the several hundred people queued up with the line looped outside the shopping centre and around the building. As people tried to join the queue that slowly grew to four abreast, there was shoving and shouting. This in my neighbourhood! The folks were lined up for toilet paper. They marched out triumphantly with the one packet each allowed.
I have never experienced ‘pack mentality’. I did today. It is not something I’d like to experience again. It felt like I was in a badly made movie.
As I’m going further north and will be working with toddlers, all I needed was sanitizer. I ended up going to several chemists with one telling me he’s making his own batch of sanitizer because they have run out. I got the second last packet of toilet paper on the shelf, sent my family a text if they needed some, check out the laundry. Their priorities have been different as they fret over their pets and if they will have enough pet food.
I have to admit it is difficult to stay calm especially when I’m in a plane so often and in close proximity to others. Never has a sneeze or cough created such unease.
Today I did fret about losing two hours of my life, chasing sanitizer all because of panic buying. I’m looking forward to moments of normalcy again.
Singing honeyeater, Geraldton Western Australia
I’m off north tomorrow to red dust country. My heart and pulse quickens at the thought.
Until next time
As always, stay safe, healthy and happy
a dawn bird
In response to RDP – Saturday – Calm
Sharing the space, in my garden.
a dawn bird
In response to RDP – Thursday : Bush
I don’t reblog very often but this post encapsulated everything I know to be true for me in the Australian bush … a heightened sensory experience where, although alone, one is never alone.
It was 7 degrees Celsius in Narrogin, over 200 km south east of home. I made a cup of coffee in the dark, pulled the curtains wide open and propped myself up in bed. Sunrise was expected at 6:52 am. It was worth the wait.
I wasn’t alone. There was laughter high in the gum trees in nearby Foxes Lair. The kookaburras were awake too. I sat in bed and tried to identify the various birdsong. The noisy Black Carnaby cockatoos, ringneck parrots, New Holland honeyeaters. I’m getting good at this! Or maybe the darkness heightened my listening skills.
The view from my hotel bed is always spectacular. As soon as it was light enough I scrambled out of bed, bed hair tucked under beanie and headed to the Lair.
The fog hung low as I walked alone, taking in every sensory experience. The crunch of…
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Hi folks
I’ve been away from blogging for several weeks and returned to find news of someone ‘ghosting’ WP bloggers. I found that disconcerting.
I started blogging for my children and not for stats but found myself enjoying being part of a community. I have enjoyed your honesty, humour, pathos, poems, prose and photography and wish to continue our exchange.
If you have been a regular visitor to my blog, please feel free to send me a request as I will be putting my blog on private. If I don’t respond right away life is keeping me away but I will respond.
It’s early morning where I am, and cold. It will be colder without your company. So with the bravery of a honest heart, I have to confess, right now, that’s the only fear I have.
Hope to have you knocking at my digital door sometime soon.
Until then
As always
a dawn bird
© dawnbird (2016-). Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any material from this site (dawnbirddotnet.wordpress now dawnbird.blog) without express and written permission from this site’s author is strictly prohibited.
In response to RDP Tuesday : Fear
In response to Silent Sunday
I wrote a love letter in the sand
one I could never send
I started at the top of the page
and wrote until I reached the end
My letter was simple
it had no beginning
it had no end
It was continuous,
unadorned with grammar or punctuation
before I could turn the page
a gust of wind carried the letter beyond my reach
and scattered some of the words across the beach,
and the rest in the air
In the sandy haze
I found the letter,
gathered the words I wanted to say
and in the silence of the night
I continue to write
my love letter, to you
that I started earlier today.
a dawn bird
It wasn’t long before they met again
On the bridge that spanned to nowhere
Talking, side by side, as always
until the sun slipped into a new day elsewhere
But this dusk was different,
he cut through the banality of small talk with silence
She stayed with him for a while
Sensing his dilemma, she gave him the space he needed
“We don’t need to take this any further”, she said
His response was not unexpected
Yet it startled her
There was a sincerity in his words,
That spoke to the yearning between two,
As old as time itself
“We can’t be together,
I also know, you know this too”
The words were rehearsed
but were jettisoned out like new
They were both silent in the wake that followed
Until he spoke again
“I dream of your skin when I sleep”,
he paused to let the words sink in
“and when awake”
His eyes softened when he smiled
“Well, it had to be said”
As he turned her around to face him
She submitted to the yield
He bared the hidden skin,
Unlike her face and limbs, it was pale
and like the moon,
luminous in the darkest hour
At the contour of her shoulder
in the space between bone and breast
He inhaled the earth of her
Savouring every breath,
he lingered longer
satiating the gnawing skin hunger they felt
from the moment they met,
or maybe longer.
a dawn bird
The flight was delayed
the airport packed
the only empty seat was beside me
He lowered his tall frame
he leaned close and smiled
soon we chat like familiar strangers
We had seen each other before
but never talked, it seemed the thing to do
“Married, divorced?”, he asks casually
I tell him, and was surprised to hear my voice say,
“You?”
“Happily”, he tells me,
with a laugh that follows easily, too easily,
“married, that is”, he adds and grins
“Nice!”, I tell him and flinch at my insincerity
he is sensitive, my disappointment, his cue
the silence that followed was long
or maybe my memory fails me,
it could have been brief
there’s a lot I’ve forgotten
this I do remember
as the flight took off
the plane lights went dim
we settled in, with a lot on our minds
or perhaps it was just one thing
when we disembark
he asked, “where are you staying?”
I tell him.
a dawn bird
A Shared Space 
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