Poetry Magazine, David Barnes, September 2001

Poetry Magazine

David Barnes

AUSTRALIA

db@aceonline.com.au

In the morning air

In secure formation
Pelicans in flight flap, measured,
cruising above the green south foreshore:
winging to the calmness of the river Swan
forging, head to tail through the hazy sky.
The lucid blue-mirrored plate beckons.
They turn in the rich mist above the placid water
making their long low slow glide,
their feet unfold, peeling the luminous surface.
In the chill currents, clear waters give back
cracked reflections.

Thoughts in winter

In autumn
I always thought you would never leave...

but now its winter.
The Wisteria has shed all its autumn leaves
a carpet down the driveway ...
against the verandah beam, the creeper
is shaky at the far end.

You told me
autumn would never end ...
that I should stop smoking it would be my finale.

Words
are still in my head, recollections
of middle age.

Women
of the hills & valleys

I see the old woman
shopping on marbled lined floors,

trembling on her walker
support hose aged & black ... selecting
unblemished fruit & vegetables;

chatting
with other women in the market place ...

she departs
remembering to catch a bus, or to walk back home,
in time for a cup of tea ...

she forgets,
keeps walking past other houses, only to turn back
to her neighbor's home... as empty
as her own.

For the old men
who sat at leisure for forty years,
discussing olive trees, and far away hills,

are not there.

(c) Debarnes July 2001 -06

Précis

Shade moves to the rise
and fall of the sun...
it has no profile, no force shape of its own...

no colour, motion;

yet casts a never-ending array
of intricate patterns, on shifting landscapes:

And I shall not be in rage
when my shade fades... in the dying sun;

who will ever know
I basked in sun... shadow soothed,
at twilight;

let the glitter of stars and time
fill your eyes...
let the end of all define you, against...

the dying night.