a moth at the mass all
broken and fluttering
finds its way home –
alleluia against stone
dedicated to its unmoved
mover. the moth
all dead remains
with the cathedral which
keeps it forever and a
day until a grey-haired
man with a backpack
vacuumcleaner sucks it
away when the parish
moves pews. he dumps
the grit out onto a pile of
rocks and the moss grows
over it. young lovers
pose there for their weddings
There’s a pale canary,
stuck in a cage.
It’s being taped
singing without a page. And there are
chains in the overtones
and overtones in the chains.
Singing for hours
despite being unwell,
energy going flat
like clearfell. And eventually
losing the use of both wings –
but still the caged canary sings.
We watch on as
the lights go off and we
watch on as the sky
fills in grey. You just
keep buying your clothes. You just
keep looking at the time. You just
keep staring at your phone.
Nobody notices that the
red-tipped spruce has
turned to grey.
Nobody notices that
we have lost another entire day.
Disquieting, the echoes
reminding us of forest,
until there are no echoes.
Constricted, we are the canary,
we are and there is no other
and soon there will be no forest.
And is anyone listening; is
anybody at all listening?
This is a response to Helen Thomson‘s performance art installation Canary
Photo credit Christopher Windus, edited with Waterlogue
Midsummer afternoon –
airy aisles weave and thread through the plum trees.
Pen in hand, I walk the lawn through an errant sprinkler,
the blue sky so vacantly weightless
a rainbow barely appears.
The hotness of midday has stopped all the clocks,
a chink in the hyaline hologram letting
a bone-white and liquid shimmer of death lazily through.
So very close and unreachable,
and now, on the other side, you.
Oh dear, dear Mary, I was going to write you a letter,
make sure I did it before you died.
Was going to tell you how
the things you’d made made my sight of the world more tender,
made my sight of the world more restless.
The way your words drew my hands down closer to the earth
brushing palms on rough bark,
running casuarinas through my fingers,
tracing sedges, grasping
smooth greengage branches to steady my fears.
You remembered to me how to welcome delight and
open my mouth and my heart without flinching to sorrow –
lift my pen for the self-evident and usual and shabby even.
Lift my sleep-sodden body sometimes to meet the dawn
though I’d rather the night.
I want to honour your scribbling stride,
past the birds, the stems, the lucid skies which strewed
for you such holiness, past stamens of sleeping
anther and filament, lush moss, past scented
petals unfolding without guile or years.
Orion tonight in the air drawing my eyes with his
three-star belt and shimmering bow
can not outshine your signposts on their
rocky outcrops and in grassy rustling fields,
pointing the way
where to? I step out anyway –
my eyes, my pen now following you past the stile of stars,
following you who maintained the child’s
faith to the end of your crone’s hours,
watching you go as you step into the temple
carrying wonder and wildflowers.
The moon’s so bright I can’t
sleep. The cracks between
clouds fracture the white beams
across grey green bush and
cliff. The wind grows stronger
and the tired, dry forest begs for rest.
The night air fast and hot,
small animals disperse fleet and fearful
throughout the hills, perceiving
fiery precedent.
I imagine tarns
surrounded by falling ash.
I imagine sleep,
where only sleep can go.
Afraid,
I imagine
everything covered with snow.
Some of Tasmania’s ancient heritage forests are currently under threat by bushfires started by dry lightning. See Luke Tscharke’s stunning photography of the type of forest which is at at risk and/or already burning.
© 2019 rosie schriever
IN passion, in darkness, in silence they came
With hammers and righteousness
Fury and flame
In passion, in darkness, in silence they left
Pride for their warp, bitter
Foresight for weft
© 2019 rosie schriever
what does it mean to bless?
there is a yes whose opposite is
more of yes.
there is a more which is not grasping
but a gratefulness.
there is a please which is not a plea
but an enchantedness.
there is a please yes more which is more ground than gliding,
more flowering than flight, more flight than flowering and
a greatness infinitely small and towering.
a tenderness closer than a breath.
a gentle gentler than gentle death.
a rushing river breaking banks to travel,
a grazing of the edges as on gravel,
as all the knots that bind pursuit unravel;
when all you have is thank you thank you giddiness –
this
ache far sweeter than a happiness.
My gift to you this year for Advent and for the Solstice just marked. For my Northern Hemisphere friends, may you now reclaim the light. For my Southern Hemisphere friends, may the light now reclaim you.
© 2018 rosie schriever
photo credit, ryan hutton
cradling you/in your thin brown exoskeleton
of chitin/tasting the salty air
beneath this blue/gazing into your
tiny bright eyes
what do you see/
what do you love?
how i wonder
what is your name?
© 2018 rosie schriever
to gently speak
but to tell it all
to trust that grace
will break the fall
to stand with pride
and move adept
to know when silence
should be kept
to know when holding back
is right
and also
when it’s fair to fight
to sleep in the palm
of safety’s hand
and feel the pulse
of the living land
to live in the manner
wish’d to die
with shining eyes
and joyful sigh
© 2018 rosie schriever
pigeons flutter like
white paper escaping by
an open window
© 2009 rosie schriever
reworked by composer karlin love in “pigeons” as part of “three bird songs” 2009
17 october 2014, 11.57pm
for jeremy
i can’t hold it back,
i can’t hold any of it back.
everything is growing relentlessly green.
leaves won’t go back into their branches,
cotyledon sprout softly, stubbornly.
the wind blows,
baby lambs frisk,
birds sing,
hens hide their eggs.
and woodpiles grow smaller,
children grow suddenly taller.
the warmth and sun goad the days past
saying where now is your ice, where is your sting?
i can hear winter’s lightfooted step
now padding away on soft shadowy-grey haunches.
tadpoles grow legs,
the air grows less brisk,
the creek flows.
and i can’t hold any of it back.
i can’t hold it back.
as much as i cling, as strange as it seems,
all this green triumphs over the black.
© 2014 rosie schriever
I leaned into his neck
– soft, warm –
a million scents of grass
and earth that with the rain had mixed
upon his coat of grey.
He was the only one
who understood the subtle change
of colour, as it moved
into the pale sky
at the break of day.
His feet moved
a little to the right
as if saluting,
hooves firm to the ground,
the Goddess of Dawn
in the fields of hay.
© 2011 rosie schriever
I did one last load of washing
after the sun went down tonight,
creekwater pale in the antelight,
banjo frogs bong bong bonging beneath the
reeds at the bottom of the garden.
And while I was unpegging I found
a leaf inside a fitted sheet,
dry from the night warm, all dry and all thick,
settling on the verandah
with next door’s drumbeat, while
all rising, bright and hazy
the round full moon.
Agitated, I pull out
a scrap of paper and scribble of
the leaf with its slightly darker stripes lying
between the dark green cotton swathes, hiding,
like the Tasmanian tiger, hiding
like the fragility of summer night, hiding
like a fragment of the last lithe
slip of daylight
hiding inside a fitted sheet.
© 2011 rosie schriever
Dear Katarina
Sounds of the silvereyes
Waking and chirruping
Breeze in the gum trees
First truck rattles by
High overhead the
White and grey cloud
Formations in the tentative morning light
Pale green power poles
Our eternal soldiers
Wood fire burnt down low
Bare feet on the floorboards
And breathing out the winter
I in my nightgown
Standing at the window
Thinking of you
© 2011 rosie schriever
making me look up
like harmonics sawn through the thunder
the screech of something alive which has lost its home
from the black stands of burnt eucalypti
the clouds have only just
at the bottom started to bleed rain
pulling free, tearing into the stratosphere
at the prior moment
to this departure, from the black paddock
across which a farmer has dragged his plough,
a red cloud in slow motion mushrooms into the air
now the ragged edges of the wings
of the shadow angel
tear a hole in this image
and on their upbeat
and with her restless talons
alights my heart
her airborne spirit
is the aftermath of a new creation
she is all our courage
extracting colours from the ash
© 2009 rosie schriever
“very highly commended” in scribbligum poetry competition, section “gumblossoms” 2009
When I see the herons fly
Outside your window, then I think
Of iridescent days, and waiting for
The night to fall.
As the birds array in height
Across the golden levels of the mount,
Their bodies in bewitching foreign light
It’s you I feel.
Before your father’s crystal bells would chime
And call me in my tatters to the well,
You clothed me in the glory of your breath
And made me real.
When I watch the birds, I think
Of you and how I had to fly
Because I am a slave, and you a man
And that is all.
© 2009 rosie schriever
“highly commended” in scribbligum poetry competition, section “gumblossoms” 2009