The last day of October. Birds are diligently and somewhat urgently gathering food for their young, whose plaintive cries can clearly be heard from the stand of trees at the end of garden. Like human parents, the birds respond instinctively to the sound of their hungry offspring.

Now and then I put some food scraps in the garden, especially when we have had little rain and our avian friends are scratching for a meal. Usually they will take whatever is offered, but lately have been getting very choosy. I expect they know what is best for the nestling diet. But today a satin bower bird swooped on a half a slice of toast, skilfully taking it out of reach of some adult magpies.

You can spend a lot of time gazing into the garden at this time of year and its never gets boring.

Tom found himself in ER at Katoomba two days ago with a collapsed lung. I don't know how lungs 'collapse', but he seems terribly young to be in this predicament. Further tests are pending at Nepean tomorrow. He has moved back home too, at least for the time-being and I am very happy to see him.

I don't blame young people for getting lost in social media and drugs - lamentable as it is - given the world they find themselves in. It may not be all that different from the world I found myself in, but the volume of noise generated is much, much greater. The foundations of truth are constantly undermined and voices clamour for attention from all directions.

Who is the one to teach discernment, how to distinguish between right and wrong, worthwhile or junk? Where are those clarions and can they be heard amidst the din?

A few days ago I received a second hand copy of the 'Selected Poems of RS Thomas' from a well known pre-owned book supplier. I could see no evidence of its having been read or perhaps even opened, so I count it as almost brand new, even though it was printed 20 years ago.

Thomas is a very interesting and a very good poet, an Anglican priest whose parishes ranged the Welsh countryside. He learned to speak his native tongue so he could better talk with his parishioners and understand their lives. His writing has the very blood and bones of the Welsh countryside in its making, peopled with lean, lonely but determined characters. I am half-way into the volume, and I am left, quite often, with a sense of the grim, the sparse, the forgotten.

Consider this stanza from 'The Welsh Hill Country' and you will see what I mean.

'Too far for you to see
The moss and the mould on the cold chimneys,
The nettles growing through the cracked doors,
The houses stand empty at Nant-yr-Eira,
There are holes in the roofs that are thatched with sunlight,
And the fields are reverting to the bare moor.'

It is not that Thomas does not love Wales and its people, but rather, that this is the truth of what he sees.

Vis a vis my last post about visa applications, I am compelled to note the final section of the tourist visa form. There are a large number of questions about character followed by a stern series of inquiries about criminal activity. One is invited to answer, hand-on-heart, whether one is a terrorist, a slave trader, a child molester, a bomb maker, a money launderer - well, you get my drift, I'm sure.

I can't imagine any actual terrorists answering this truthfully, unless they are very dim. Ditto for pretty much every other nefarious activity that is listed and about which actual miscreants would surely answer 'no'. I guess it doesn't hurt to ask, but I cannot fathom its practical purpose other than saying 'we don't want these kinds of people in Australia.' Or perhaps they are trying to psyche the applicant out of going any further.

I don't really know how we get any tourists from countries whose citizens must complete a visa application to come here. It is long and intrusive and at times impertinent. I know we have to protect the citizenry, but where is the hospitality?

I had quite forgotten the joys of completing visa application forms on behalf of others for the Australian Government until I opened up Ann's ImmiAccount again today. My mind flew back half a dozen years to a period where collecting seemingly endless amounts of data - documentation - to support the already enormous process of completing an application, was my bread and butter for what seemed like months. For all I know, it might have been years.

At that time I had been applying for permanent residency for Ann and JJ, one after the other, followed by citizenship a little later. This time Ann's son Aran wants to come for a holiday, which is great, but it falls to me, as it must, to go into the breach once again. 'Surely a mere tourist visa will be a knock over?', I thought, as I nervously tapped at the keys to open the account on my computer.

How wrong can a man be? I had forgotten about the needless information gathering, the lack of auto-fill, the one-size-fits-all questions and much else besides. And I haven't even got to the section where data must be collected, translated, certified and uploaded.

I remember saying to an immigration officer once that the amount of effort expended completing the residency applications was deserving of a PhD, if only for the quantity of time spent on the project and the arcane nature of much of it. He thought I was joking.

But no, I was not.

I swing between viewing the world today as being a worse, more dangerous place, or the pretty-much-the-same place of my youth. If I look closely at the 1970's, for example, I note that there was a continuing war in Vietnam, a number of proxy wars in Asia and Africa, a massive number of nuclear weapons, wars in the Middle East, as well as high inflation and unemployment in the West. Military juntas had seized power in Chile and a number of African states. There was actually a lot of bad stuff (did I mention Pol Pot?) going around, to coin an academic phrase.

Today we know much more about climate and how we might prevent making it unbearable in the future, there are fewer nuclear weapons though more nuclear powers and there are wars but not as many as before. Living standards across the globe are higher, medicine is better - in fact there is much to like about how things have improved, by certain metrics.

On the other hand, public behaviour and discourse has declined, crazy conspiracy theories are believed and a new form of extreme thinking has emerged on both the left and the right, heedless of the historical record. Mental illness seems to have exploded and there is little doubt that mainstream popular music is poorer melodically and lyrically. I just threw that last one in.

I'd like to get a set of old fashioned scales and set them up to see which era has the worst (heaviest) record. But this is all too subjective anyway and tomorrow I might come back with a different list altogether.

This being my birthday, I shall be a little self-indulgent and choose a birthday poem for this post, albeit one that is more reflective, less celebratory. Linda Paston, who passed away a year ago, is an American poet, whom I not heard of before. But she can write, so I look forward to reading many more.

Counting Backwards

How did I get so old,

I wonder,

contemplating

my 67th birthday.

Dyslexia smiles:

I’m 76 in fact.

 

There are places

where at 60 they start

counting backwards;

in Japan

they start again

from one.

 

But the numbers

hardly matter.

It’s the physics

of acceleration I mind,

the way time speeds up

as if it hasn’t guessed

 

the destination—

where look!

I see my mother

and father bearing a cake,

waiting for me

at the starting line.

 

It is hard nowadays for poets who once wrote about topics of religious devotion to be fully understood by a modern audience. The pendulum of faith has swung so far in the Western world as to make such writers appear naive or deluded. I couldn't disagree more, of course, and love to read writers who are sensitive to the metaphysical in their lives. Christina Rossetti, about whom I have written often in the past, was just such a poet. She wrote both secular and devotional verse, so has a wide appeal.

The poem below is as close to a gem as I can think of. It improves with every reading.

I Am Small and of No Reputation

The least, if so I am;
If so, less than the least,
May I reach heaven to glorify the Lamb
And sit down at the Feast.

I fear and I am small,
Whence am I of good cheer;
For I who hear Thy call, have heard Thee call
To Thee the small who fear.

A few days ago, the Nobel Peace prize was awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, the organisation of A-bomb survivors who have worked tirelessly to promote an end to nuclear weapons. It is hard to think of worthier recipients of the award, not only because of the awful struggle they have been through, but also the threat that hangs over the heads of every living thing on the planet.

When I was living in Japan, it was common to find items in the newspapers about hibakusha, the name given to categories of people affected by the explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There was a struggle amongst these people for recognition, medical assistance and a fair go. Many were discriminated against because of ignorance about the effects of radiation sickness (was it contagious?) or the perceived potential for birth defects, which were not above a national average, in any event.

I once wrote about one of my adult Japanese English students, Mr Honda. Sent by his parents to Hiroshima to escape the bombing of Tokyo, he narrowly missed being a victim of the atomic bomb. He had gone over the mountain a few days earlier to stay with cousins, a short journey that saved his life.

I pray for all the remaining victims, the hibakusha, that they will be better understood, accepted and indeed, applauded for this wonderful award. I pray for those who have died. For the person, now gone, whose shadow remained on the concrete step on that day. For the tattered uniforms and lunchboxes and those who leapt into the river in agony. I pray for you all.

News that King Charles III will tour Australia soon brought back memories from my childhood, when my mother would dutifully fill the car with her children and head off to meet the Queen.

On one occasion, Her Majesty was due to visit the Spastic Centre of NSW (now, Cerebral Palsy Alliance), which was located in the nearby suburb of Allambie Heights. We lined up along the drive leading into the main building ( I don't remember any Union Jacks in hand) and waited while the Monarch met with the good people inside. Then in a flash she was off, a hand waving by a passenger window in the back of a Rolls Royce. It did seem exciting to us back then.

It is hard to say how the republican issue will play out in coming decades. The steam seems to have gone out of the debate - the world being as unstable as it is - more Australians are siding with what they know and what works best. The antics of royals such as Andrew and Harry ( who should surely have heeded the lessons provided by Edward VIII) have not helped the royal cause and Australia's population is changing in any event.

No more the Anglo-Celtic supermajority, though its influence is still overwhelming. Things can flip very quickly, though in the antipodes, we are not unaccustomed to watching the paint dry, whilst the grass grows.

That day in 1970.

Heading out this morning for a trip to Penrith, my turned key in the car ignition was greeted by inactivity. It might be more accurate to say that there was something, the muffled sound of a enfeebled asthmatic, perhaps beneath the bonnet, and a tell-tale flashing of lights on the dash. Dead battery!.

I can't complain because the current battery is the factory-install and nearing 6 years of age, which I am told is the maximum to be expected. Because we have colder winters in the Mountains, batteries are under greater pressure to perform, so going the distance is close to a miracle.

Ann and JJ have gone into town in search of food (Thai Town being the ground zero). I am up to date with all my recordings for 2RPH programs, having completed the Christmas edition of Writers from the Vault yesterday. I guess that means I am really a long way ahead but finding time to record, and the correct conditions for recording, is becoming more difficult.

But what have I to complain about? It is a privilege to do the work that I do, it always has been, and I am greatly blessed in being still able to do it.

We had the changeover to daylight saving two days ago, giving us darker mornings and lighter evenings. I used to love this period as a kid because we could play outside after dinner, the light not fading until about 8pm. There were no screens in sight as we kicked balls, rode bikes or had a game of impromptu cricket in the park at the end of the street.

This is not a criticism of technology per se, but the overuse of devices to the exclusion of other healthier pursuits. I faced similar criticism viz a viz television and playing records, but really these are hardly comparable. As I said. we were outside playing most of the time. Entertainments inside took a long second place.

This morning a group of birds were noisily protesting something at the front to the garden. It's a very different sound to that of ordinary bird chatter, more a pointed, squawky, 'get outta here' variety. Sure enough, my wife said that she saw a small possum being assailed by birds as it navigated some trees in the garden.

It is very unusual for an Australian possum to be out and about so late and I found it hunching on a tree branch. I will keep an eye on it because the poor thing may be sick or disoriented, in which case a call to WIRES will be in order. But I do hope that it can make its way home.

Forgiveness is never an easy thing. No matter what the offence, how great or little, pride of one sort or another drives us to hold on to slights and grudges. In some cases, the offending party is entirely unaware of what they have done, or alleged to have done. But there is no doubt that unforgiveness leads to bitterness and resentment, an emotional boomerang that hurts the one who is unforgiving. We all struggle with this, me no less than anyone else. I think that forgiveness needs to be a daily practice.

In the following poem, Welsh poet RS Thomas 'forgives' his parents for the circumstances of his upbringing. But he also realises that it is not their fault - they did their best and were not responsible for the nature of the 'drab town' nor the deleterious effects that being raised there had on his mind. It was just where they lived and they did their best. Perhaps there is even a tinge of guilt, on the poet's part, for the way he feels, in the final verse.

Sorry

Dear parents,
I forgive you my life,
Begotten in a drab town,
The intention was good;
Passing the street now,
I see still the remains of sunlight.

It was not the bone buckled;
You gave me enough food
To renew myself.
It was the mind's weight
Kept me bent, as I grew tall.

It was not your fault.
What should have gone on,
Arrow aimed from a tried bow
At a tried target, has turned back,
Wounding itself
With questions you had not asked.

The Servant-Girl at Emmaus

'Stop that clatter woman'

The gruff voice intoned,

'There's guests to serve'

She returned to her work,

Retrieved the fallen tray,

Tried to hide her trembling hands,

'Just do as I say.'

But she was lost, truly

Dared not shift her head,

Only what remained in view-

A pitcher, pestle, cup,

Scraps of discarded bread,

And heedless of the cost,

She never looked behind, instead,

Rallied every sinew to busyness,

And seeking more to do, thought,

'How can I serve those men again?'

To look upon a face she knew.

Just three days, was it?

Was it three?

In Jerusalem,

Dead on a tree?

Straining to hear his voice,

Straining, in lamp light,

Frozen, heart-burning,

She began again her turning.

'The Servant-Girl at Emmaus'  Valazquez c.1620

The first day of October and the weather seems to be paying attention. It's sunny and quite warm. In the background is a sea of cicada sound, their brief above-ground existence this all-encompassing symphony.

Today I'm off to the radio station in Glebe to host Features Forum, our daily selection of commentary and such like from the four Sydney daily newspapers. The format tends to get a little bogged down in politics and economics related material, somewhat hard to digest if it fills the whole 90 minutes. I try to encourage a wider range to include reviews and some lighter pieces to soften the serious journalism that is inevitably our lot, but it is not always possible.

On Saturday last I bought one of Pat's fabulous boiled fruit cakes from the Red Cross stall at Hazelbrook. It's pot-luck when they will next be there - usually every three months - so I am delighted when I do stumble across their cheery tables outside the pharmacy. Even happier when I see that there are still some cakes left, because Pat's fare sells quickly.

The Red Cross ladies are getting older and older. I wonder who will fill their shoes and generous spirits when that time comes?