30 April 2008

Rain

It is possible to walk in the English rain without getting wet.

Compared, of course, to getting caught in the kind of rain that splashes up your legs, cascades through your hair and trickles down the back of your ears. Rain in Thailand saturates everything only to dry it all out again five minutes after it began.

Or, your beautiful Tasmanian rain that falls in tiny cyclones. It flicks its way into your ears, leaks through every buttonhole and flies up your nose. My flimsy little purse-umbrella didn't leave a dry patch on my body when I got caught in the rain in Tassie.

This English spring rain, it falls in neat tiny droplets. Droplets that fall straight down in orderly fashion and sit politely on the toes of your shoes. Little shiny dots that mist a layer on your coat and slide themselves in neat trails down your umbrella.

This English rain, it may go on and on forever, but mostly as long as you have your purse-umbrella your ears will stay dry.

26 April 2008

Welcome Back (and Now it is Spring)

Twilight is suddenly not until 8pm,
woollen jumpers make me sweat, need to peel off layers,
walking down the street I am wrapped in swirls of pink and white blossoms falling.

17 April 2008

Home

Beauty Point, Tasmania
Beauty Point, Tasmania

Steam rising from tea.
Crisp, early mornings
golden hazy light.
Birds squawking, the black cockatoo kind, really more like SCREECHING
tearing seeds from pinecones with noisy efficient crack! sounds.
The sea
which is truly the river but feels like the sea.
Memories of fears
of sharks that will come up from beneath and nibble my toes.
They never did
but they could have.
Silence.
Being able to see the stars, really see them.
Friends.
Family.
Having all those in-between conversations, you know
the ones that come out after all the "so how are you" and "what have you been doing lately", you know
about the things that really matter.
Distances, short:
friends nearby, meeting people I know in the street -
and still,
great distances, dreams and memories of far away.