Stormy

Driving home yesteday, I started from the beginning and said the Rime right through to my latest verse:

The coming wind did roar more loud,
It shook the sails like sedge;
The rain poured down from one black cloud,
The moon was at its edge.

Some parts were very fluent, and in others there were gaps and hesitations. Once or twice the thread frayed entirely and I had to cobble a 'mutter mutter' bridge across the gap.

I enjoy the cadences and all the variations of emphasis and intonation which are different every time.

My thoughts linger on word choices... sails like sedge. This recitation is a form of 'staying with', there is a faithfulness in it. My brain seems less flighty these days.

I am back from a few days at Rainbow Beach where I saw this sunrise at the Carlo Sandblow. The sun rose under this bank of thick black cloud. But it didn't rain.

it rained

Today I am learning

The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,
I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I awoke, it rained.


Today we are concerned about the lack of water every day. So far this August we have had only a few milimeters of rain – it's newsworthy. Also newsworthy is the drought that is extending throughout southern Australia. It is looking more like a shift to dryer weather pattern, and not a drought that will break. We're adapting to climate change. The government is buying back water allocations from irrigators because the water simply isn't there and the rivers are drying. The Lachlan is the latest catastrophe.

This picture is from the mound springs south of Lake Eyre in South Australia. The threatening clouds left a clearing in the west where the late afternoon sun broke through a short time after this photo.

happy living things

Some verses almost learn themselves, while others take many repetitions. These two came easily:

Oh happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed in my heart
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And blessed them unaware.

That self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.

What a basic lesson – it's not about you. Our natural inclination is to care about ourselves almost to the exclusion of others. So it takes a constantly renewed effort to care for others, to see another's point of view. This is for our sakes as much as for theirs.

In the early morning at Woomera, we saw these birds flocking on trees and screeching in that very Australian way. They were happy living things, for sure. And our hearts lifted to see them.

moving moon

I had a quiet weekend to recover from the hectic pace last week. At work again this week, I'm pacing myself through the various deadlines that loom each day.

Yesterday and today in my drive to the office, I am trying to learn

The moving moon went up the sky,
And no where did abide;
Softly she was going up,
A star or two beside–

Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
Like April hoar-frost spread;
But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
The charmed water burnt alway
A still and awful red.

I like the repeating motifs ... the bride was red as a rose and the nightmare life in death had red lips. It's a powerful colour. This verse also refers again to the colours in the water -- so exotic and scary for an English sailor.

I thought I 'had' these verses yesterday, but today they had fragmented in my mind. So, I am rebuilding them, etching them in the channels of my brain.

When I learn things, my organism changes. My rhythm, the pattern of 'me' is altered incrementally.

Red suede shoes... very different for me. They are good for those high-energy days when there is a lot to do or something to celebrate.

A busy week

Every day has been packed to the brim so that I get up before 6.00am, keep moving and get home late. Some is work, some is family – like the citizenship ceremony last night that saw us sitting through a small-town affirmation of a large life decision.

The Ancient Mariner verses I have learnt today are –

The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reek did they:
The look with which they looked on me
Had never passed away.

An orphan's curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man's eye!
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.

I love the unadulterated melodrama in this poem. It seems to fit the 'life or death' magnitude of the subject.

In these last days I have felt a resonance between this poem and the novel The Life of Pi that made a big impression on me when I read it a few years ago. In both works, the main story is a about survival at sea. And both seem to touch on eternal elements of human and animal nature.

Here is one of the pictures I took on a walk in the Flinders Ranges, South Australia. On this short walk at dusk, we found ourselves in the midst of grazing kangaroos. We were so at ease with each other. This seemed elemental – like the Ancient Mariner, or Pi on his lifeboat.

Flying to Melbourne

Flying to Melbourne today for a business meeting with State Library of Victoria, I learnt several verses.

The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.

And more....

Being a survivor is not unalloyed joy.

These ochre pits have been used by Indigenous Australians in South Australia for tens of thousands of years. Standing there, looking at them, I couldn't help but think of the generations of people who used this ochre. It is good to know that Aboriginal art is flourishing right now and that this tradition continues. So much else is lost.

Ancient Mariner

I am memorising the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I'm about half way through and today I will learn...


The souls did from their bodies fly, –
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul, it passed me by,
Like the whizz of my cross-bow!


The cross-bow that he used to kill the albatross that now hangs from his neck. When we do wrong, it drags us down. We are burdened by it until we have paid the price. What price redemption?

Station ruin in Flinders Ranges (July 2009)