Golden Queens.

In the orchard,
I reach high,
as far as the sky
into the tree of yellow suns -
peaches bigger than my hands.
Wrench them down,
and bite in big,
and the juice drips down my chin.
I wipe with my sleeve,
and turn to run,
my pockets stretched,
smiling, happy, harmless.
Another simple pleasure.

The dog and the doll

Our tough little dog, a girl from Wagga Wagga, had been with us for fourteen years when she finally felt the pain.

Selected from a tangle of of legs and tails and piddle in the bottom of a big plastic tub, Sammy was something like a Jack Russell x Aussie Terrier ? Silky Terrier - she was small, hairy, smelly and loving. She was no doll, but she was Katie's dog.

Sam grew up with our family, unknowingly being part of the glue the held us together. Always there, outside in the early years, to give the boys a wrestle, to be a confidant when all the world was against them, to sit with and just chat when times were better.

During her life she had many adventures, falling from trees when chasing sparrows, being stuck underground for hours when rabbiting, pursuing ducks and swans beside, and into, the lake. She was, one morning, lucky to escape a chopping as she ran very close underneath a helicopter landing behind our house.

When she was six Sammy the climber fell. One night she tumbled from the top of a sheet of weld mesh, seriously hurting herself, hooking her hind leg and hanging upside down, her body weight pulling at the skewer in her thigh. Her yelping drew us running and she was quickly disengaged, to the sound of the escaping possum as it scrabbled up a tree.

In time her wound healed, but the next year a lump had appeared under the scar. The vet removed it only for us to see it come back with vigour and begin to fill her hind leg. Some more examinations and we heard that the growth was also in her back.

Little Sammy was tough, she carried her 'chop leg' with her for another eight years. It was like she wore a mask of happiness not showing concern to her disability.

The lump lay dormant until Sam was fourteen, when it increased rapidly in size and began to cause her great pain. As our vet Dr Di reassured us, it was best that we could help her overcome that last challenge with decency and dignity.

Sammy was buried under a peppercorn tree beside the billabong, protected by some granite rocks at Kate's family farm.

While digging her grave, the remnants of a ceramic doll's face were found - perhaps a prior burial, another girl's good friend from a much earlier era. It was a chilling find. A hauntingly fine ceramic mask, a death mask, which raised a number of questions - some perhaps best unanswered.

The mask will be returned to it's home under the peppercorn, with Sammy for comfort - the dog and the doll together.

Spiders & mozzies

In the garden tonight, I watched a spider trapping mosquitos.

Wrapping them in cigar-like bundles, mummies, good food stacked in a neat pile to one side of her web.

The insects buzzed fitfully when trapped, until well after they were sealed away, their muffled screams continuing right to the end.

Rain

Big slow drops on an iron roof
The air is cooler as crickets call
A light breeze of freshness
Brings rich earthy fragrances
Which linger pleasurably
A delight to all

Hallelujah Kenja

In Melbourne on Sunday night, strolling with Katie. We're invited to join in singing the Hallelujah Chorus by a lady standing on the street.

I enjoy singing and have contemplated rejoining a choir this year. It would be fun to have a vocal blast - it'll start in 1/2 hour I'm told.

The lady handed us a flyer and I read it while we have a coffee.

Kenja Communications are the ones running the night ..... 'Who are they?' we ask each other.

Katie Googles them, gasps and appears worried. She shows me - defined by cult, court case, Cornelia Rau, sexual misconduct, witch-hunt ..... Ummm, thanks, but no thanks!!

We stroll back again, the lady is busy arguing with a policeman about a car parked in a No Standing zone at their doorway, she doesn't notice us as we breeze by.

I'm humming the Hallelujah chorus as we stroll along, happy together in this beautiful and comfortable city.

All jokes aren't jokes -

In response to a FB repost by the enlightening Cathoel Jorss:

http://oforganon.tumblr.com/post/11150747104/to-all-those-men-who-dont-think-the-rape-jokes-are-a

I spent nearly two hours today sitting near the corner of Bourke and William Sts - reading, watching fashion and style, sunning myself like a lizard, observing a crank of cycle couriers coming and going at the gabble of their radios. It was really enjoyable.

How many of those people who were passing by, sitting near me, making eye contact, avoiding eye contact, would threaten or hurt me in different circumstances? I feel safe in the open, in daylight.

I'm male, I'm tall but as I age I feel more and more vulnerable. I have never felt, imagined or experienced the violently personal invasiveness of rape other than as represented in shockingly chilling disgust in some films. How can you joke about that, how could you laugh in response??

When I was much younger I was always uncomfortable with 'boys talk' and crass jokes but didn't have the guts to acknowledge that in front of my peer group.

Through my career as a schoolteacher I became confident in expressing myself and now, over 30 years later, I have no difficulty in conveying my disgust to people who demean, abuse or bully others, male or female.

But I'm worried, and Katie (forever my best friend) is scared, that one day the teen on the train who's swearing and abusing his girlfriend on the phone will turn on me with a knife, that the bombast at the barbecue will king hit me or the drunk in the row in front will 'glass' us both.

I'm prepared to continue to risk it.

The strings of Christmas

It's bustling in Melbourne, even for a Sunday afternoon. A caterpillar of families admiring Myer's Christmas windows, buskers performing- it's fun watching the world of excitement , it's so foreign to me now.
I'm suddenly snatched from my reverie by a man, younger than me, a neatly trimmed red beard. He's talking to me, fast and insistently, asking for money. 'You're hungry?', I ask in response to his request, 'Come with me and I'll buy you a meal at the Ghurka Institute, all you can eat, it's vegetarian' ..... 'No, no, no' he says, 'Accommodation, give me cash so I can sleep here in the city tonight, I don't have a job at the moment'.
'Ok', I say, 'How does this sound, I'll do this for you - I'll buy you a feed, I'll buy you a ticket to Mildura and call the labour exchange, they'll have a bed for you and you'll start work tomorrow picking fruit'.
He's aghast, irate, and tells me that 'Karma will get me', he points at Katie saying 'She'll have a rotten Christmas, you're mean and selfish, karma will get you'.
I sigh and begin to move off. He grabs my arm. I look down at his hand and he removes it.
'You cannot know how happy my wife is, how much she's been through, how often she thinks about life without me and how your call is far too late - it's far too late for your karma to 'get me'!'