'We had huddled together a long time in the shed

in the scent of vanished corn and wild bush birds, and then the hammering faltered, and the torn cobwebs ceased their quivering and hung still from the nested rafters. We became uneasy at the silence that grew about us, and came out. The beaded violence had ceased.'

That's the first verse and a bit of Les Murray's magnificent 'Spring Hail' from the collection, 'The Ilex Tree.' We are not even remotely near spring, unlike our northern neighbours and have yet to endure winter's dispossessions. I like the beginning of June, but this old house is poorly set up for mid-winter.

Still in autumn, though nearing a midway point, we have rain and more rain. At this time of the year we usually experience warm sunny days, cool evenings and the gradual turning of the exotics. It is invariably dry too.

Yesterday there was a large earthquake in Myanmar, one which also rattled adjacent Thailand. A building collapsed in Bangkok. Ann has been busily searching the news online for information. Suffice it to say that she is no longer keen on buying a condo in a high-rise complex.

I hope that those buried under the rubble can be found alive and that lessons can be learned.

I quote from 'Spring Hail' above because I love the poem and also because it will open Episode 48 of 'Writers from the Vault'. There is a lot of good Australian writing and I have only just touched the surface.

 I read an article recently in one the Sydney papers which described a relatively new phenomenon. Some folks in the younger (perhaps the youngest) were dispensing with capital letters and grammar in their writing. They claim that it's not only cool, but that it is subversive, flows better, is less authoritarian and better suited to their communication needs.

If this were some Joycean experiment in stream-of-consciousness writing, then I am all for it. But I doubt that neither Joyce nor his narrative techniques have anything do with it. So, could these youthful pens be onto something? Are we missing out on the joie-de-vivre of unfettered free communication by sticking to such arcane rules of writing, all of which were invented by dead, white fuddy-duddies.

No, not all. If this is your schtick, then please don't go into law or medicine or write any report in which word precision is critical. It's fine, of course, for inane texting tasks. Not much else, really.

There are plenty of serious things you might want to be subversive about, though.

I used to talk with my mother once or twice a day on the phone. Her passing has left a gap in my life ( and doubtless my brothers too) that goes beyond an hour or so on the telephone, though the latter was a lifeline for her as she became increasingly housebound.

Amongst her many memories were bibs and bobs about family life decades ago, some of which I had forgotten. I was amazed at how sharp her memory remained even as I regretted how poor mine seemed to be.

As kids, or young adults, we used to watch a lot of BBC produced television, most of it on the local ABC. Once, when talking about the late 70's, I asked if she remembered a bitter sweet comedy called 'Butterflies', and to my surprise she didn't. Well, not at first anyway, but when I added that the star was Wendy Craig and she drove a mini-minor with a union jack painted on the roof, the mists cleared a little. 

It so happened that I came across some used DVDs of the very series on eBay and was in the process of buying them when she passed away. I had intended to give her the first series and see how she enjoyed it, but alas, too late.

 

So instead, I have been watching them again myself. I am just starting the second of four seasons and have been surprised at how much I am enjoying them. The laughs are really quite few, the sad moments and frustrations rather more evident. It strikes me that as concept, it was well ahead of its time, the odd funny moment in a sea of plaintiveness, which speaks rather highly, I think, of the writing, casting and directing.

It's not everyone's cup of tea, though.

 In his poem 'The Flower That Smiles To-day', Shelley wrote,

'The flower that smiles today

      Tomorrow dies;

All that we wish to stay

      Tempts and then flies.

What is this world's delight?

Lightning that mocks in the night,

      Brief even as bright.'

The Romantics knew only too keenly how all things must change, starting with what they saw in the natural world and conflating it with the human condition. This is increasingly apparent today with our heightened knowledge of natural phenomena, though whether we benefit from it or not is open to question. 

There is something to be said too for unchanging truths which stand in defiance of all that is mutable. I don't need to dwell on the point as readers of this blog (surely none - ed.) know what I think already. But change today is not accepted readily - you can see that in climate change deniers - but many others are also inclined to put their fingers in their ears and shout 'la, la, la.'

You can see it in the countless ageing products being touted, the increased use of drugs and alcohol as escapes, the failure to deal with change in relationships that leads to violence. And so forth.

I will be the first to admit that change for me is hard, mostly in the contemplation thereof, but also in the practical world. I fumble the ball a lot, though not through want of trying.

Christina Rossetti, one of my favourite poets, had a penchant for dwelling on the melancholic. A committed Christian, she seemed to ring an equal measure of joy and pain from her faith. I understand this, for  we are always falling short, disappointing or repeating past errors. As Thomas a Kempis notes in his Imitation of Christ, no sooner have we risen from our knees having pledged to be better, stronger or more committed than we are letting God down. Such is the human condition.

Rossetti, like many Victorian poets, was drawn to the topic of death, doubtless by the many life-ending maladies that took lives before their time was due. In Rossetti's case, I cant help but feel that like Keats, she was 'half in love with easeful death.' It is a good topic for poets, after all.

Thou Sleepest Where The Lilies Fade

Thou sleepest where the lilies fade,

    Thou dwellest where the lilies fade not;

Sweet, when thine earthly part decayed

        Thy heavenly part decayed not.

 

Thou dwellest where the roses blow,

    The crimson roses bud and blossom;

While on thine eyes is heaped the snow,

        The snow upon thy bosom.

Autumn Waking

I thought I had it

figured out,

Summer's late tail;

Like sleep-walking

at midday

under a huge sky,

along, yes, a familiar trail.

Hours spent about

the slackening sun,

it's ancient flattening

slow in all that unyielding green.

But judgments are frail,

The rout that came,

Was camera-flash quick.

I might have seen

The liminal margin,

The fibril of gold where

the flourishing had been,

that ever promises the same,

yet always disappoints

missing the in-between,

Just as I did.

What instant moment,

What prompts in time,

Is it, that creation appoints?

 Autumn has entered the scene suddenly, as if summoned urgently by the stage director. I had wondered where all the turning leaves might been but today I see that they have burst upon us, as if by stealth, with a palette comprising, yellows, red and oranges (see next post).

Having a garden that is a little like a park, I am conscious of all the movement in the trees and bushes, the subtle and sudden changes, that occur over the four seasons. Being at a higher altitude than Sydney we do experience a greater clarity as one time of change blends into another.

Autumn, as I have said before, is my favourite season - one of richness and then decline, a prelude to the appearance of ever-thieving winter. It is a sweet yet mournful harmony to my own slight melancholy, but unlike the season, there is no chance of Spring's revival in me.

Never mind, winter is not yet upon me.

That Christmas

That Christmas, 

One like none before,

I found the Christmas stick,

Mulling in the yard, I saw it

Lifeless in the dawn.

That Christmas - 

There was no scowling traffic,

No early rise, hasty packing,

Nor the usual yuletide bother,

No piling of gifts, 

Trails of shining paper,

Nor any shifts put in -

To tend the roast,

Turn the potatoes, or

Top up the nuts.

Absent too,

The pressed linen,

Cruets and odd paraphernalia

That only Christmas annually

Brings in an Australian summer,

For a declining English home.

But there is was,

Embedded from its night-fall,

Rudely upright,

Built of a common tea-tree,

Really nothing at all,

Yet strangely alluring,

Honouring, in a foolish

Humble way

The Absentee.

Mutability

All that changes is unchanging,

What is seen and unseen too

Much the churn of green, of lively

Flecks that spin, and rearrange,

In the soundless dawn of days,

A universe of subtle aging,

In endless secret reconnections,

Sub-atomic struggles raging,

By a shrouded spirit blithely.

And so it comes to pass -

(I write this with a sigh),

Our days on earth are like the grass;

like wildflowers we bloom and die,

And ever darkly through the glass

The wind blows, and we are gone - 

The wind blows, and we are gone,

Absenting all once stood upon.

 In his poem, September 1st 1939, Auden wrote,

'Uncertain and afraid,

As the clever hopes expire

Of a low dishonest decade:

Waves of anger and fear

Circulate over the bright

And darkened lands of the earth,

Obsessing our private lives;'

Auden was writing of the very day of the German invasion of Poland, the event that triggered WW2. The 'dishonesty' of the decade, the 1930's, stemmed from his view that little had been done to stand up to fascism, save hand-wringing, appeasement and wishful thinking, a failure that has led to this terrible moment in time.

I wonder if Auden's assessment might similarly be applied to the current decade, the 2020's, in which we find ourselves in a not dissimilar situation. A great power, Russia, in the thrall of an 'elected' dictatorship, has invaded a smaller neighbour, Ukraine. After years of supporting the underdog, the world's preeminent superpower, the United States, seemed to have switched sides. It's President is a man for whom the truth is whatever he desires, never mind the facts. In this sense he is more aligned with the dictator than his actual allies.

I can't see this ending well.

On Sunday evening Ann and I went down to the Nepean River for a stroll. It had been a warm, humid day and the the dusk still wore the heavy air of the day, though the sting of the sun was gone.

A lot of work has been done along the riverbank to transform the area into a vibrant and picturesque community resource and the pathways, shelters and grassy slopes were still busy with families.

We crossed the pedestrian bridge at the northern end and I took this photo of the ebbing sun on the river. It came our better then I thought it would. Life is full of such small blessings.

 I used to travel quite a lot but in recent years have shied away from it somewhat. There is no doubt I have less energy than once I did (just reading my European diary from 1979 exhausts me!) and I am leary of flying at the best of times.

But today Ann booked for us to go to Thailand to visit her family - a seven year gap for me. I have felt guilty for some time now; after all, my mother-in-law lives there, so this is more a duty than a holiday. I do like Thailand but it is so hot and the country town we will be residing in is big and dusty and not noteworthy in any way. I guess that means it is off the tourist trail, the one took myself in the earlier trips to Thailand. So that's a plus, surely.

Still we will have a few days in Bangkok, where I'd like to visit museums and explore a khlong or two. I don't need to see the Royal Palace and all the famous temples again, something quieter, please.

We are not going until December so more on this journey, later.