bedraggled sea winds & coloured-in skies ♥

If you were Peter,

And I was Wendy;

Darling, would you think me mad

If I were to fly away?

You taught me to soar,

And it was Neverland I thought

I sought,

Yet nevermore could I contain

The flapping of the wings against my ribs.

It’s quiet;

The sun rises slowly over the dewy grass.

It doesn’t bring much warmth with it,

Just illumination.

Illumination of the pure emptiness,

The loneliness.

You can feel every breath of the fresh morning air,

See the colours of the flowers in the tree.

Catch the glint of sunlight on steel

And watch the dew slowly evaporate.

School is so much more peaceful when

When the sky melts

Romantically from sweetest blue;

With not a cloud

To hide any of my

Expansive canvas behind,

Like the lightest of watercolours

To peach – neither gold

Nor orange, but peach

When the crickets stir up

Meticulous rhythms upon their legs,

And every breeze is like a

Cool gentle breath.

There’s a certain peacefulness

That can be found,

That can be taken comfort in.

And if I was to walk

Barefoot upon the sand,

Recently kissed by the sea,

I too would feel like the

Air and the sand and the sea

Every night,

Without fail, before he fell asleep,

He’d go out into the fresh dark air

And he’d watch the stars.

He’d see if any started moving,

He’d watch them twinkle and flash.

He’d breathe out slowly through his mouth, and

He’d confess things he’d never confessed to another soul.

The truth about how he really felt,

What he thought of other people,

His fears at what others thought of him,

Or never doing “enough”.

That he would hurt other people

More than he ever meant with his words

Or actions.

*

Every night,

Without fail, before she fell asleep,

She’d disappear into the night

Seeking the moon and the stars,

Which glowed bright in her eyes,

As she watched them glimmer and dance;

And confess to them

Things she had never dared

Confess to another soul.

Like how she felt she was never “enough”,

That she would not be who everybody

Wanted her to be, or that she regretted

The decisions she made.

That she would always be alone.

She’d sometimes whisper the songs she

Was sung as a child like a lullaby,

Or recall the conversations that day that

Had made her bubbly laugh escape her.

*

They would murmur these confessions

At opposite times of the day,

And he blinked and walked and talked

While she dreamt and slept and whispered to the moon.

They both thought, during their

Moonlit ponderings,

Of the philosophers, or the

Inventors, or doctors or singers or

Peace-keepers or war-makers or

Movie stars or jazz musicians:

All these people that we’ve ever heard of,

They’ve looked up at the same sky we have,

The same sky 7 billion other people have looked at,

All of them as lost or curious or optimistic as

Anyone could ever be.

As they could ever be.

And in the not too distant future,

The star who had learned of both their hopes and fears

Knew she could not leave these two beautiful people

Behind, and wanted to weave in her magic.

She did not create the circumstance.

They did that, with their choices and their desires.

But when they met each other,

And they said they saw stars in each other’s eyes,

And others fawned over the romance,

The star knew that she had made the right choice.

Imagine a movie with the

Stunning juxtaposition of happy

Music & rainy days in a car.

As I watch rain droplets

Collect with each other and

Gather momentum as they

Chase each other down my

Window, like tears,

I am reminded of how

It has rained many

Times recently while

Driving up the same highway,

As the road turns foggy round us,

And the eucalypts stand there

In their wizened experiences

Saying “Been there, done that.”

Wipers are working overtime,

As we spot an ambulance

Flashing in the distance,

While between the techno-tribal

Music, there’s a familiar jangle

Of a dog’s collar.

The automatic assumption of

Rainy days & sadness is not always

As honest about our feelings as

We could be.

There is something

So entirely wholesome

And lovely about being with

A group of people that may

Not be your best friends,

But you’ll share hot chocolates

With them on a lazy Friday,

In your new jerseys that seem to suit everybody.

And you’ll share stories of yonder,

And stories of laughter

Because these will be the times

We will remember. 

Something I just realised that I find

Wonderful, but never bothered

To think about is the

Tenderness with which somebody

Can write a song with.


But not just any song.

A song without words,

And nothing but the

Scrambling notes, as they

Run, jump & fly across the stave,

And the emotions that

Were penned with the tune

In mind.


And with a gentle melancholy,

Or a brimming joy,

The author quietly scrawls

A title across the page.

And these words are the

Key to the locked door

That the emotions present

On the stave.

That tenderness goes

Profoundly unappreciated,

And I have discovered

‘Twas a moonlit masquerade,

You & I, we hid ourselves

Behind elaborate masks

Lunar radiance glowed over all

As the music swelled and burst.


I knew only whom I was invited by, no other,

And was unknown with or without the mask.

Elegant & purple, it sparkled daintily in the candlelight

Whilst my dress clung to middle

And flowed out in glossy black like

A midnight lagoon.


Light conversations over canapés –

I learnt their names & their

Passions – from over-hearing jubilant guests and

One sided conversation.


The chords struck up a fanciful tune of merriment;

Soon swept onto the floor

Most with partners they knew, as I was

Left with gentle strangers.


None were very inquisitive,

Mostly inebriated from the

Evening’s delicacies but we

Continued under the cosmic canvas

With delicate vibratos to

Twinkle us with delight as we

Made our way around the floor,

Passed from partner to partner:

So many I felt indifferent to.


I suppose I had been

Dancing with several partners and it had

Very nearly become a menial task.

But the tempo suddenly

Accelerated into a jolly jig

And partners were exchanged in a spin.


In a spin, I fell into

Your arms, and found half the face of

A man’s, covered by a feathered gaudy mask,

And I could not help but laugh

In the moonlit masquerade.


For the first time that night,

I revealed things that had been uttered

To no other party goer, that no other

Dancer had cared to ask,

This was only the first step, as he spoke too:

In a voice like molasses –

Dark and sweet, I found

Myself listening closely for

Every answer & playful banter.


However we found we had

To change partners & always

I would find myself distracted,

Searching crowds for the

Feathers or gaudy-hued mask, and

Often did I see him searching the crowds,

Upon seeing my face allowing

A radiant smile to sparkle in

His eyes and across his face.


I wandered away from the

Dancefloor and eventually

Those eyes which I had

Been seeking, and voice

Which I had been yarning

Were behind me,

And we finally removed our moon-stained masks.

Oh, how the ocean crashed

And swelled, with the howling of the wind

As it battered the sturdy brick cabin

Sitting atop the cliff.

Raw were the forces

Post-Oswald sent down,

As the trees were stripped of their leaves.

You could see the apartments

And the beach trees in-between

Being tormented by the wind

In an exotic exciting exhilarating way.


The violence must be staggering

If this is only the fringe

As the poetic tumult of the ocean

Sent quivers down our spines

As the rain flattened itself

Against the windows

We made ourselves a blanket fort.


So we nestled inside our fort

And watched the trees in the

Swirling flurry of things yet to come,

As the mini-tornadoes are predicted to strike,

We watched the tumult of the ocean

With poetry in mind,

With quivers down our spines.

The pine trees yearned

To scrape the thick grey sky

And when they swayed in the

Wind, they would brush away

Those reprehensible clouds

Leaving streaks of blue

From the forgotten sky hiding underneath.


Adamant was the sky that none would

Conquer her and her capricious ways;

To be her own entity and that

None could be properly, truly loved by her,

Because she was the dream of many.


Reach for the sky! They said.

The sky grinned sneakily,

As she changed personalities

In the blink of an eye,

So people were reaching towards

A hazy unknown, but they were willing to trust;

But she changed before they knew.


She could just be

A canvas in which you could uncover the faces

You had only had to look

For to find.

Or with greater subtlety,

Allow her to quietly

Or brashly uncover her intricate charms & mystique.

From her shelter inside,

She slid open the door

To be hit by the

Stagnant hot air from the world.

*
The sun was just setting

On another hot day,

Although everybody knew that

The night had few cool words to say.

*
It beamed gold through the trees,

On the grass standing dry,

As she came out the door,

It fell straight in her eyes.

*
It illuminated them,

Made them glow,

And her mostly-brown hair,

Shone bronze, don’t you know?

*

The smoke was palpable,

‘Twas so thick in the air,

But as the sun dipped down

What would it be like were it not there?

The sprinkler’s become a tattoo:

Not just the fierce Scotsman,

With his drums & guns a-fire,

But also the skin’s permanent pen.

*

Turning dusty lawns black,

The sprinkler’s clear ink

Soaked the ground:

Their fates were wound together

By the dry October wind

As the sprightly leaves rustled to & fro.


Their hearts were loudly pounding,

Like the ocean’s constant sounding

As a crashing so recurring

Against rocky sheer-drop cliffs.


The moon shone on so brightly

As we clenched our fingers tightly

Just comfortable in knowing

The gentle creak of the porch swing

Was our lullaby, ‘twas ours.


Can you feel the river flowing,

And our bodies softly glowing

In the placid waters soothing:

As we submerge into the deep.

As we gaze up to the sky,

A thousand stars do lie

Across the dark bed,

Of night time, over all.

What a beautiful season

Is Autumn.

Not only in nature, where

The vibrant colours and

Majestic hues take charge

Of the avenues and start

Shedding their coats for Winter,

But in name, too.

Autumn.

It just rolls off your tongue,

Like a dewdrop on a petal.

The ‘n’ at the end of the word

Adds a sense of intrigue;

Mystique.

Like the season’s small secret

It’s trying to keep;

But everybody already knows.

Autumn:

The season where people start to dress more warmly,

As the temperature begins to decline.

Woollen scarves & hats, boots.

Faces begin to be ruddied slightly,

And on occasion, there’ll be nights

Where steam vents slightly in the air,

Or the cold wind nips at your ankles.



Autumn is the time

When there are still traces of warmth

In the air, but the weather is

Just this side of lovely:

Not too hot, cold, dry or humid.

It’s the time when greens

Turn to yellows & oranges,

Ice tea turns to hot tea

And blankets get thicker.



Autumn is the time

When leaves shimmy & shake in

The wind to fall in slow motion;

When friends turn to lovers

And huddle like penguins for warmth

And the time when everything

Seems perfect in the sweet scented light.

Below the water’s crystal surface,

Looking down across her body.

Her dark hair rippled around her face

As her eyes sought out past the blue.

Her tanned legs kicking gently,

Propelling her through the water,

While her arms kept her from sinking,

Saving herself from staying under.

 

Her body, which wasn’t really bad as

She made it out to be,

Languidly billowed and wavered,

As she was fully stretched out underwater.


Respite from above,

As she felt as if she

Could maybe have been, just in

That moment, a mermaid.

I.
No words could ever

perfectly describe a sunrise.

* 

If, by some mysterious magic

it is managed, however, then

certainly no words may encompass the infinite

feeling which accompanies it when one is surrounded by

their friends who all feel just as awe-struck as you.

* 

No words can encompass the feeling

of staying up all night to be rewarded with

this magical pocket of nature that few experience.

It makes you feel so gifted, so alive,

to have experienced

something of that magnitude;

an awakening of something great,

a breath of crisp dawn air,

a new beginning: hope.

* 

Hope is borne from the brave stars kissing

the sky awake, and smoothly,

subtly, rising up and vanishing.

Hope is there when the first birds are lonely and cold

but call into the dark morning anyway,

so multiple songs are strewn from the trees

and thrown from the power lines.

Hope is the tip of the sun as it lights up one

small part of the cloud, giving it a golden tint

and refracts the rays through the dewy grass.

* 

It doesn’t matter how tired you are,

when the golden light streams down

across your lap while you’re drinking stealthily-made tea,

and catches the multi-coloured flecks

in your friend’s eyes and hair, you are alive.

* 

You are listening to Mother Nature

herself now, and she’s putting

on a show to keep you enthralled.

II.

They say that you have the most honest

conversations at 4am. I wholeheartedly agree (unless you are asleep -

in which case the quote may need to be altered slightly).

And at 7:10pm, 23/12/12, this is my reason why.

* 

At that time of the morning,

in summer, at least,

the sun is just about to rise - and everybody knows that.

They’ve probably been waiting for it.

When the light does come up, though,

it’s the most breath-takingly simple thing. 

They also say it’s the small things in life

which are the most beautiful. 

This is one of those moments.

* 

So while it’s simply amazing,

the conversations are the simple, deep ones.

Such as, ‘What’s your greatest fear?’.

You could answer something corny,

or ‘I don’t know’ to avoid discussing it. But to me,

I had to answer honestly because of the light and

the way that in that moment, it felt infinite (Chbosky, S.: 1992 Perks of Being a Wallflower).

* 

 It was like Mother Nature’s way of saying to me,

‘If you don’t answer honestly in front of these girls, Leah,

this sunrise  spectacle will be lost, and you’ll be

left sitting there regretting not telling anybody your fears

and wondering why nobody can help you

the way you want, or need, to be helped.’

So I told them.  

That’s something else to remember.

Don’t be afraid to vent once in a while.

III. 

But courage comes from within.

Everybody has courage, in varying amounts

tucked away in them somewhere.

I must use as much of mine as I can find.