Without shoes on

I spent my childhood without shoes on. Only when I laced up my black clodhoppers for school did I feel the studious weight of leather and lace dragging me down, and my mood sinking with it.

As I dragged weary limbs towards class – my holiday elevation plummeted into those ungainly soles.

Struggling sharp edges of grass, determinedly heaving up through the concrete paths made my feet itch inside their off-white cotton socks. I would run my hands through the wild long grass that pushed through the school fence, at lunch time; grass cuts crisscrossing my dry hands.

The bubblers would cool the stinging, and quench my thirst, from the shimmering Queensland noon heat. I never have dealt well with extremes; I still don’t.

Light

This strangely beautiful quality of light. Magnificent and sudden – surreal, the rolling thunder – slice of lightening. The lime green of trees, once olive shaded. The rain picks up, momentum gathers. Pelts down upon the tin roof, ricocheting on my face and breast, as I lean out the window in abandoned delight.
For now, my worries leave me and I feel calm and free and filled with kinetic energy. And then, I shut the window. But light still pours in, so I shut the blinds. I can still hear the thunder, so I shut my ears. Last, I close my mind. And now the sky is pink with violence.

Gossip

The sticky words
Will come pouring out of me as vomit
For you to chew on like cud, tasting different,
with every person whose ears they pollute.

Caught in the tumble

Thinking, thinking –
I’m filled with thoughts
bubbling up – secretly.
They find me – hiding – under tables
smiling, at nothing, much.

They find me – posed – ready to jump
in to my bowl of cereal
to morosely float on a slice of
banana.

They control my spoon
Swirl and twirl – on banana.

As I spin, I catch glimpses
Of what could be – each whirl of
milk shows another possibility.

I lack the capacity to choose –
caught - as I am in the tumble.