Selected poems
Family idyll
As I squeeze socks washed in a motel basin,
I remember my mother prodding with a long stick
the sheets boiling in the copper, while my father fixes
the car, one sister helping him, the others at play.
Mum jokes about fingers getting caught,
as we squeeze one corner of each leaden sheet
into the glistening join of the white rollers
that swing back and forth above the steam
and the concrete troughs. She lets me strain
against the handle with both my hands.
At the clothesline I clasp one set of corners
as she stretches each sheet across the wire
and pins it with pegs I give her. The line full,
I return to homework and chores and she returns
to the kitchen, to watch her family from the window
as she washes dishes and prepares the next meal.
Hours later she shows me more: take one end,
shake, pull tight, fold, turn over, fold again,
again, move together, give her my end, slide
my hands down the sun-drenched cloth
to the new end, move apart, shake, stretch,
move together, again — and my father again
yelling at me to weed the vegie garden:
'Your job, so get back to it. Or else.'
She shakes her head when I start to protest,
calls the girls to help. Lets me go.
If time travel existed
You would do the usual:
relish the best times — first glance
of lover, first thumb-grip by babe,
the glee in each achievement,
the dance of glistening motes.
Repair those blunders — the slap,
havoc words, the moral lack
of insight into others.
And peek around those corners
hiding reasons for our worst —
rage of parents, self-abuse
of lovers, seeds of disease,
why you swear you know what's right.
But you never will know all, not even
with time travel. You'd have to be
everywhere at once, be behind
and in every word and act,
flow with the charged breath
Of mote and light. To sum up:
You'd have to be God. Poor Thing.
For the one fact denied God
is the unforeseen. And you,
deep in the heart, thrive on awe
and laughter. Each new blossom.
The more things change
My grandfather's barometer rises ten points.
The cat annoys me for more diet food. Our ancestors
lived in Europe for at least 1.57 million years. My wife
kisses me as she leaves for work. I wash three days
of dishes and worry about a sore groin. The cat squashes
Double Pink Marguerite Daisies as she suns herself
in the flower box on the front porch. I recycle
unfranked stamps and read comics and poetry.
Trees stammer in the wind. Children laugh
in the jumping castle next door. I file bills,
newspaper clippings and letters. The cat chases away
its near-twin. Clouds hide the hints from distant stars.
Somebody hits the top ranking on a social network.
We wrap Christmas presents for my distant children.
Bats feed at the apricot tree out the back. Shall we go
to the Solstice party? Archaeologists discover a bunch
of meadowsweet blossoms in a Bronze Age grave.
I address a letter to my father. The barometer
doesn't shift. The cat kneads the arm of our couch.
Through dream
Seamus Heaney Reading, Sligo, 27 July 2009
You sleep continents away
while I attend to poetry,
that place where we dream
and think at the same time.
Heaney's images and rhythms
of gleam, black birds, kite-rope
shiver the heart and nape,
charge us with steadfast wonder.
And I also wonder
if you shiver now in dream,
drawing deeply
from that common vein
you and I quicken each day
with word, thought, thrill
of breath and reach, those sighs
when I fondle your neck.
Comfrey
Unkillable it is. Not
by drought. Not by pulling out.
Not by pots of hot water.
Not by slugs, snails, weed warfare.
And I've taken it from house
to house over eighteen years,
ever since tea made from it
healed a dog hit by a car —
broken hip, glazed eyes. After
weeks lapping it up, the dog
could romp around the yard, bark
at intruders and passing cars.
Even more unkillable —
the idea of healing herbs
grown in back gardens, against
the policies of governments
pandering to drug companies.
No threats of fines, jail, can dim
our common law freedoms won
from Magna Carta onwards:
a man's home is his castle,
right to free speech, free choice,
right to protest injustice.
Yet we are many. And we
will always be here — after
elections, after battles
against nature, nation, us
versus them — healing ourselves
and the land beneath our feet,
our womb, our nurture, our tomb.
Earl Livings has published poetry and fiction in Australia, Britain, Canada, the USA, and Germany. He has a PhD in creative writing and taught professional writing and editing for 17 years.