Mainstream women wonder where my secret lies,

I'm not livin' high class or mysteriously in disguise,

But when I try to tell them,

They Say I'm tellin' lies.

​

I say,

It's in the reach of my community,

The span of my empathy,

The home with harmony,

The care for your pain.

I'm a woman, Bellingenally,

Bellingen woman, that's me.

​

I dance within a women's circle,

Just as carefree as you please,

And to a tourist, they're in awe,

Fall down to their knees.

I'm whimsical, yet powerful,

I'll save our ancient trees.

​

Mainstream men wonder what's the mystery in me,

They try so much but they can't touch my inner sanctuary.

When I share it with them, they say they still can't see.

​

I say,

It's organic cloth on my back,

The weave of the thread,

Love woven in,

While sharing home-made bread.

I'm a woman, Bellingenally,

Bellingen woman, That's me.

​

Now you understand just why my head's held high,

I don't skite or criticise or make you question why.

Men!

When you share time with Bello women it ought to make you sigh.

​

We say,

It's in the taking of a stand,

Offering a hand,

Respect for our elders and First Nations of this land.

It's the care for the children beyond one's family,

Eating food in season, home-grown is also key.

'Cause we're women, Bellingenally,

Proud women we shall be.

There’s no turning back

Even while you sleep

It will find you -

 

Acting on hot flush behaviour

Call this shit show Mother Nature

Pausal woman wants to cool the world.

 

It’s decreased sex drive

It’s calorie deprive

Help me to dessert -

 

Help me make the most of sex toys and hot weather

Will this bloating last forever?

Pausal woman wants to cool the world.

 

There’s a family who will defy you

Messy bedrooms, the walls come tumbling down

Panic attacks are right behind you.

 

So glad for wine and rom-coms

So sad for sagging bosoms

Pausal woman wants to rise again.

 

I can’t stand my hormones leaving

I can’t stand my husband’s breathing

Why can’t he just read my mind?

What did he say about my behind?

Pausal woman wants to kill her man.

One Final Flight

 

Age crept upon you

ever

so

slowly -

a jolly old man in his eighties who lived by the sea.

“I’ll just check on the ocean, make sure she’s still there,” you’d say

and peer out the window to the rolling waves

below.

Any excuse to catch a glimpse of her beauty.

 

Still drinking coffee with friends, writing your witty stories, healing others through

hypnotherapy,

never tiring of your home-made dhal.

Your stories published in books to

amuse, to entertain.

Your protagonist a trainee angel wreaking havoc

on the unsuspecting – a priest, a terrorist, a crim.

A true delight.

Your muse, the sage within.

 

A friend I found in you

sharing meals; you with your palak paneer all spicy and me with malai kofta so mild. A

colleague to swap our drafts: edit, comment, repeat.

Sandalwood incense swirled

between us

from your humble apartment

as Tibetan bells rang and welcomed me

in.

Always your hearty smile, a comforting embrace, a father-figure who offered words of

… nourishment.

Little birds strolled on in to your loungeroom,

snuck seed from your palm.

Creatures great and small trusted in your calm demeanour, your gentle repose.

Including …me.

 

Your sudden decline unwarranted,

your acceptance no surprise. You always went with the flow, even while those who loved you

went

unprepared.

 

“Next lifetime I’m coming back as a rich Indian,” you’d say. “I’ll gorge myself silly on Indian cuisine and be merry all the time.”

And I believe you.

 

The young pilot in you enjoyed

one                  final                flight

over oceans, Pacific to Atlantic.

Your daily visitor rainbow lorikeets the pall bearers beside the plane’s broad wings as you

travelled back to the Jurassic Coast.

Your first family scatter your ashen cloak to Burton Bradstock Beach

as  the  waves  bow  down  before  you.

You’d smile at the alliteration of your resting place.

 

 

I hold the photo.

The ocean still,

the blue sky clear.

You and your girlfriend, the sea, now one.

 

 

Australia’s Eastern Coast eternally duller,

missing your warmth and jest.

My sailor, my groom, passed with the moon

Blue in the cool month of May.

I willed him to live with my singing bird song

But I lost against storms of his prey.

Cancer drove in with terminal sin

It spread to the crest of his lung.

Dampened the flair and the flight of his sail

In ill-joy I held on, I sung.

 

But love’s not enough to stifle the rough

Of the Sea when She calls out your name.

No herb and no vile can hamper Her style

He surrendered his will when She came.

Lonesome, bereft, in sadness I’m left

Grief biting each desolate hour.

My crisp petals wane among silence filled rooms

Drooping the spine of this flower.

 

My daughter’s they know my pace is too slow

Each day presses down a dull song.

My spiritless lark and apathy shows

I’ll dismiss this life before long.

Each night I’m awake with a hollow bone ache

Lying tangled in sheets of dismay.

I strain with my ears to hear my called name

Before Christmas She’ll summon I pray.

​

A southerly reels on its warm woolly heels

On the twenty-fourth of the month last in line.

Wind ruffles the skirt and curls up the tongue

Of the Sea hissing the name that is mine.

I rise from my bed, bare-footed I tread

To the shore beneath scowling crest moon.

The Sea’s beating waves drum the song of the wild

She will squander this hapless old croon.

​

A crow lands nearby from the trembling sky

Shakes his ruffled, bedraggled wet wings.

He’s crouched on the pier in the pall of salt spray

My bugle, the craw that he sings.

“My sailor, my groom, I’ll be with you soon;

My pillar, my lovely night dream.

The angels will fly by the torch of this sky

By the light of this sullen moonbeam.”

 

I dig with my hand in the bleak glassy sand

Scribe his name on our true sacred site.

This note I shall leave as my little clue

That I’ve re-joined my captain tonight.

Memories dance with veiled romance

I pass procession of broken whelk shells.

Hungry Sea cries, “Step forth unto me”

As Her pressing curves blossom and swell.

​

I’m drenched to my waist in my sudden haste

Half swallowed brings sodden relief.

A white-washy wave kisses my brow

This baptism cleansing my grief.

Her belly I feed in all of its greed

She clothes me in black velvet gown.

My ankles She’s tied in gossamer weed

As Her waters lap over my crown.

 

I soak in her brine, Her watery shrine

In the arch of Her bossom She shows;

As the current of life never taught me to swim

She’ll silence forever my woes.

In one final breath, I welcome in death

Luminescence lights up the shore.

“The ocean, my friend, you answered my prayers”

I’m embracing my darling once more.

​

I was tired of old Wauchope

I’d lived there too long

Like a worn out recording

Of an eshay song

So in the Solstice I snuck off

Visited Bello instead

On the bus-stop billboard

There was this notice I read:

 

If you like protecting forests

If it’s kefir you crave

If you’re into hot Yoga

And bass-heavy raves

 

If you can tame the bullrouts

In the river opaque

Them I’m the town that you look for

Move to me and escape.

 

So I wrote to the agent

Replied to the ad

Though I’m nobody’s poet

I thought it wasn’t half bad

 

I’ll protect the forests

It is kefir I crave

I’ll try out hot Yoga

I dig bass-heavy raves

 

I like choirs and bongos

Clitoverse is my scene

I am much into health food

I am into low screen

 

I will homeschool my children

I will plant native trees

I tell you I’m desperate

To save Carpenter bees

 

My approval came swiftly

The very next day

Ten years now in Baalijin

Where we say “Ginagay!”

A baby was born, this baby was me, a girl with brown eyes, but how will she be?

Her mother unwell, filled with disdain, contempt, paranoia, the brink of insane.

The nurse told her outright that I won’t survive: “A few minutes of breast milk? She can’t possibly thrive!”

From my crying, which rang, fierce to the nurse, my mother took flight - the bottle the curse.

It drowned out the sound, the whispers of blame when her own mother wrapped her up tightly in shame.

Through the wake of my childhood, I tried to lie low, Mum’s outbursts of temper the regular show.

The years travelled slowly, dismay at the wheel, swerving for pot holes, keeping it real.

When adulthood found me, it laughed in my face, presented a future in poor form and taste.

The years crept by cruelly with angst at the wheel, I cursed and I blamed, I tried to not feel.

 

A baby was born, that baby my girl with brown eyes so open and one little curl.

This baby so helpless, but how will she be with a mother so broken? That mother was me.

As days turned to weeks, depression grew worse from the story repeating, resentment the curse.

By one year my baby was not faring well, her crying, her sadness, was trying to tell;

Eruptions of anger affected her too then one day I realised, knew just what to do.

I made a decision to conjure Amor - replenish, rejuvenate, heal and restore.

This baby she held the key to my heart so I flung it wide open, we made a fresh start.

I heard of the cycle, repeating the past so I learnt meditation, I learnt this skill fast.

I had nothing to lose – ‘cept fear, pain and grief. Within weeks it was working, I felt some relief.

 

I kept up the practise, and let myself hope that insight and wisdom would help me to cope.

As feelings of kindness came sat down by me, I welcomed them fully, for I could now see;

My mother meant no harm, lost in despair, caught in the web, stuck unaware.

Acceptance, she trespassed, drove into my soul, embracing my wounds thus making me whole.

A new birth arisen, I shed the last tear. My childhood forgotten; I shifted the gear.

Now the years go by so fast, I blink it’s a year. This happens in space-time devoid of the fear.

I’m travelling gently, I swerve now and then but I know where I’m headed, won’t repeat again.

When those of ill-intent shadow their thorns in a chapel of wit and charm; while stone-faced gargoyles with hungry eyes peer into your soul, salivating; she appears at the door, a silvery slip of a sight, to warn of their wicked ways.

Will you hear her or fall prey?

When liars lead you down a path or two or a whisper on the wind warns that death is near.

With the silence of the birds.

When bees swarm.

Would you notice or simply carry on?

Butterflies crash into one another in the dark in your belly.

Do you not feel them?

She floats on the wings of every one.

In every hair standing to attention on the back of your neck, coolth pressing upon your skin, she touches you.

Feel her!

While ever you surrender to the vice of the victim, play along, her sense will never rise to the occasion.

Blood-red stains on the windows you look through, but you do not see.

See!

The altar empty as you sacrifice the truth, time and time again. circling around in cycles, never going in.

Still, gently she knocks.

Almost inaudible in the stories you tell yourself.

A plague unto your mind; the sludge of discontent; a quagmire of resent. Ment.

Deaf to the harmony which waits within where she could speak volumes in whispers of warmings.

Yet patiently she persists, ‘til you open, surrender to her will, and…

truly listen.

Her enamoured heart floats

And having sailed, lingers upon an ocean of windswept dreams.

All thy sunsets nor regale can lure the drifting mind of swollen lust,

With silkened hues of blue;

Nor any sweets or soothing words from the shore can hail.