Little Mumbles

In a small town on a quiet, sunny day, sounds scatter like pebbles across water. The place exhales and inhales, pausing to hold its breath, waiting for something that won’t come. The movements languid. The wooden seats at the cafe are being varnished. At the second hand book store, the locals grumble about art galleries and markets. Rough laughter can be heard from the fish co op. Each thing is distinctive and yet moves as one, in this quiet, sleepy town.

In this place, the trains only come once every hour, the sun stretches back from the river at night, peeling itself from the surface. As the water turns cold we pay the gate keeper for safe crossing. Death stands on the shore at the gates and holds out a key, reaching a hand towards us, as we make ready for the pass between this world and the next.

I came home tonight: the tide

pulling me sideways, up-stream;

the river with its lights red and green;

the oars are a ship, and I am moving

into oceans, into the dock,

where I will find you

drifting back

from the sand.

Tonight the tide is rushing in, heading up-stream. It pulls the boat sideways. The starboard lights flash green across the water. I pull the oars with my whole body, moving through the water, as if I were a ship guided in to dock. I don’t touch the sandbank as I cross it. The red lights flash in front of the hills. The tide is high. I won’t have to take my shoes off when I reach the beach.

I came home to the river tonight thinking I’m so glad it didn’t rain today. I don’t have to bail the boat, get my feet ankle deep in cold water. Mum has given me the key to her boat on a key ring that will float if I drop it in the water. Wise thinking. I straighten my back out, get ready to row into the blackness. The sounds of the night travel eerily across the water.

Glistening slippery

on the mossy rock

    I am falling down

   and swimming 

       with my arms and legs.

          My voice has fallen

      down in rhythms

of rain and rocks.

  Waiting to be still,

          ground down

     by all that water,

  falling, as I am.

Or am I falling?

   Or am I rocks?

      And falling too?

        Still moving, moving still

  and repeating, repeatedly,

getting stuck. You hate it -

     the repetitions, going round. You like

          the falling, the moment of dissension.

                  Something happens too, rises up,

            from the unconscious, the sub-

    whatever you call it: home register

         where all the thinking happens.

I hope you feel it

(down)

The water

As it falls

(down)

Across my fingers.

When the river swells it is never just with water.

The rain runs down the road, across the concrete, in places where it shouldn’t.

The river carries a different quality, with more dirt and less salt.

The sand on the beach is pressed down by the rain,

And people’s faces are turned down, away from the storm.

the coral sea hides
yellow and blue

and together
we are solid

under here
you do not exist

watery
in fragments

the seaweed drifts
you stretch thin

in cloudy water
over the lightest parts

found wandering
in the dead skin

I roll up my pants and
Slip my feet into gumboots,
leaving my gloves on.

It is low tide tonight, and
it’s raining. But what can you do
When the world is full of water?

I drag the boat down the beach.
Although I cannot see the river
Or the waves within it:

Blue on blue the water
Is beyond my vision.
I hear the fish jumping.

The water slides at the edges.
I can’t see the island tonight.
Surrounded by fog,

it forgets its own name, 
and the lights won’t reach it. 
 
I hear my sister’s voice


somewhere on the beach. Her
hands glowing white.


The boat glides gently


From the sand, and the oars
Splash. I row across the river
With my head torch.

fall off like water.

I will not sleep

when you are gone.

You stand dry 

with sandy fingers

while I am melting

into oceans 

your rubber boots

cannot pass through.

Your net catches

foreign objects 

smoothed by travels

I am passing through.

(inspired by littlebirdsings)

there is an idea
that mum and me
might write a paper together

a paper about water
and gender, and water
and people. The way
we use it, abuse it.

water societies, floating
in rivers. i wonder if water
is feminine. or if we could
argue that, perhaps.

it could be creative
we could introduce song.
we could claim that water
moves around solid objects.

in this house
the echo is loud
under the floor boards
and on the roof
the birds scratch.
the radio fills
the empty spaces.
water rushes down
and out, its energy
converging under
the house.
the dark waits
beyond the windows,
staring back
when i look out.
the light reflects
on the glass
where i am
washed
in water colours.