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[log in to unmask]">Dear Helen:
Thanks for the offer, thanks for your poems, and here are the pieces - you might want to feature one and put the rest in the poetry bit.  I am looking forward to getting the final bit of surgery and my new glasses before too long.  Keep writing and keep having some fun, sounds and looks such a truly lovely spot. Cheers, Fran

Scars, a rebellion

I do not admit to scars,
the surgeons place
is much too personal.

I’ve wept enough
over those long lines
in hidden places—
Yet I’ll allow
defects and that my scarings
allow me
to survive.


            Noises
I have not wished to hear
the anger in your voice

Two men are laughing
through the too-thin wall

A thousand wasps
murmer in the eves

Midnight sirens
cry the wounded

Muttering madmen stride
their anger through my streets

Motor cycles carry
men in black shirts

I hear the unxious pleading
of salesmen

I stir out of my sleep
weeping for future’s lost

and listen for the endless repitition
of the dark bell’s tool

Canada Geese


The signal's given
to wing high on a westerly
Black and silver bodies weave
and interweave
arrowing
ever south

Here on my lake
*
water stars, waves turn
as though even water
heeds the warning
waits
as movement
stills to ice


Tansy Field

Is home the house my father built?
The house that is no longer
Drying pea vines tangle
and yellow tansy mirrors summer sun
Milkweed and wild oats narrow
the road that has no place to go

Is home a far country
wider than memory?
The northern  continent?
A generic?
A planet?

Or is my home the place we landed
on tarmac where the scent
of Jasmine mingles with heat?
At the city edged by lace of lights
light trembles into the sea

The cottage greets us
lamp lighting
as we open the dark green gate
and melds our shadows

Yet we’ll say, “ We went home last winter
it was summer there.”






Where water falls

Water falls
dark banks deepen
twisted roots curve
braiding together
to hold back the earth.

Deep caverns fill
and the river rat
finds a new dwelling place.

In dank reaches
black bats gather
Otters seek new sandbars
for their morning toilet

The black bear picks his way
more carefully, climbs to a ledge
waiting where wild raspberries
ripen in August heat.

The Stone Rambler

“Forgiveness makes it safe for us to be here”
Forgiveness makes it safe for us to be here
here when the voice
of the meadow lark sounds spring
from atop the water tower
where we walked at the edge
of the new ploughed field
and you told me you were leaving.

There was no room you said
and the dread of fenced aging
broke the chain that held you
to this place, this land
this road.  You did not think
I would hear
the unsayable:

I was not strong enough
to anchor you, or brave enough
to go.  Without you this place
grew cold, red roofs faded
the field my father ploughed lay fallow
until wild oats, stink weed and  parsnip
covered the furrow and willows spread
roots into the creek bed.


       Frances Arnett Sbrocchi

Helen Hagemann wrote:

[log in to unmask]">Just posted new poems on first pages of my website, written at a 55 acre
property in Gidgegannup, Western Australia, called Milmeray. Site contains
photographs of the area. Enjoy!
Helen
http://www.geocities.com/helen_hagemann



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