the ocean – here
a response to Haiku Horizon’s prompt – Ocean
and with total respect to and in awe of Toni Child’s Where’s the Ocean?
Tag Archives: water
gratitude #2/10
I am grateful for water today. I am grateful for the beautiful clean water that comes fresh from the tap, for having all the water I need to drink, cook, bathe, clean, and keep my garden going through this winter heat wave.
I am grateful for the rain, washing the sky clean of dust and smog, for the sweet smell of the rain, and for the wild music of the rain on my tin roof, and for the drama of the storm. I am grateful for the rain, for the promise of rain and for the memory of it too.
I am grateful for our river, the Bremer, that despite being clogged with rubble and debris and silt from reckless developers and harried farmers, she keeps flowing, serene to the sea. I am grateful for her beauty, and for the breezes she cools.
And I am grateful for the seas, the wild oceans, our wild mother oceans which nurtured all life… may they never be tamed! And I am grateful for the slap and sting of salt water on my bare skin which reminds me that I am here now and I’d best pay attention.
I am grateful for water today.
swim
in deep water, a silent stone –
and the songs of fishes
evening thunder
thunder before dawn
the ocean inside of me
There is an ocean inside of me
Breathe in
and out
Hear the gentle waves wash over sand and shells and smooth-ed stone let the waves break long and slow from one end of the vast horizon to the other
Breathe in
and out
This ocean has existed for a million thousand billion years and reaches to eternity
Breathe
Listen to the ocean
I am standing in the train with someone’s briefcase pressing into my back waiting in a phone queue to discuss a payment that bounced sitting waiting for a job interview
And I listen to the ocean inside of me
The only thing that’s real.
rain rain come again…
Dear rain,
I am very sorry for singing that nasty rhyme at you. It was ignorant and mean of me. Please come back from Spain, we miss you and we need you here.
We have been in drought – officially – since August, and pretty bloody dry for a lot longer. And now it’s getting hot too… Big Sighs
There are a few personal inconveniences… dust from the driveway blows straight into the house, and all over the washing on the line and all over the BBQ too. I have to water the garden more frequently – and compensate by chasing everyone out of the shower early. And remember to top up the reservoir that allows me to wash the dust off my car’s windscreen. Stuff like that.
It’s worse for the wildlife. A crow died in one of our dried out dams last month. It looks like she got stuck in the mud, poor thing. And the few refugee kangaroos from the latest bulldozed-for-ticky-tacky-housing-developments have become so desperate for fresh grass and moisture that they graze in the house yard, rather than staying skittishly in the paddocks beyond.
The trees are suffering too. A row of ornamental pine thingys have died, and fallen over beside the drive. And the gums are doing the widow-maker thing and dropping peripheral branches, sometimes silently, sometimes crashing down in the middle of the night.
And I am worrying again about fire. If the dried out bush just over the driveway catches alight and heads in this direction, we are toast. We do have a plan – to run across to Len’s place, but I’ve seen a bush fire – and know that the trees between our places could well be alight before we get to the boundary…
So dear dear rain please come again, come in buckets, soak us through, force us to get the gumboots out … we love you, we really do.
