in his image...

I notice him as he leaves the stage at the start of intermission. Tall, thin, spectacled, a halo of wiry brown curls. The cellist from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is the image of my late friend Robert.

For almost 20 years we wrote to each other - the correspondence beginning not long after he left Victoria to return with his wife to live in Sydney and ending with a card which he wrote from his bed in a palliative care unit two weeks before his death in September 2003.

It was, I suppose, an unusual friendship. Our connection was forged when he was far from here. My husband had begun as the correspondent and then one Christmas for reasons I cannot now remember I took over. Books, our children, teaching, writing, travelling. Over time, we became attuned to each other in ways neither of us could have expected. Perhaps it was the simple freedom that long distance friendship offered. All I knew was that a silent solidarity grew in those small tight bundles that appeared in my letter-box every few months.

He viewed the world with an exceptional intelligence and yet I sensed that because of this, found it difficult to accept that so often people behaved irrationally. He just couldn't understand why..

When he became ill we visited him in hospital. I was shocked by his appearance. He'd lost weight and had little energy to move around the ward.. He told us he'd made the decision not to pursue further treatment after the oncologist's report suggested there was no prospect of recovery.

I saw a sad dignity swimming in his eyes.

The cellist's appearance on stage the other night was extraordinary..
I could only see my friend..

that life..

The files come in an R.M.Williams bag. Six thick manilla folders crammed with letters, reports, newspaper cuttings, leaflets, photographs, speeches and a hundred other things that made up an office in Gippsland in the 50s, 60s and early 1970s. My father's working life in a brown paper bag the weight of a small suitcase.
I open it up and find that life again.

bike morning..

most Thursdays and Fridays I go for a ride around the town.. this morning there were puddles on the path..puddles?..
I pulled my phone out from my right sock-leg and took a couple of pictures..

Winter in Berwick, July..

july sunday..

out in the yard on just-cut grass
three blackbirds and a starling are skating from the shed to the clothesline

a ping of birdsong pulls me from the kitchen table
to stand in sunlight by the open door.
I stare through wire screen diamonds
and breathe in my own stillness..

they sift through cuttings, squabble, dance and -
to the windchimes' ripple underneath the eaves -
the starling wings its way to the birdbath,
dips its beak and sunlit body
into the middle of that stone waterhole,
flicks out the washing-up, then
like bells that play one note
over and over and over
those blackbirds break into song,
a one bell choir
on a winter afternoon..

night reading..

should continue the Tassie signposts but tonight i can't take my mind off the book i've just finished..

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin..

it's quietly brilliant..

tour de tassie

we've been away in Tassie..
green island dreaming.
wet gum trees,
puddles in paddocks.
long and winding roads..


from the notepad-

Nive River
Tungatina Power Station
Highland Lakes
Bronte Park
Lake Binney
Brady's Lake
Bronte Lagoon
Lake Echo
Dee Lagoon
Osterley
Laughing Jack Lagoon
Brown Marsh Creek
Clarence River
The Wall in the Wilderness
Little Naveire River
Franklin and Gordon Wild Rivers National Park
Coates Creek
King William Creek

rain glorious rain!

Mt Arrowsmith
Gifford's Creek
Surprise Valley
Squire's Creek
Taffy's Creek
Mt Gill
Franklin River
Frenchman's Cap
Stonehaven Creek
Double Barrel Creek
Donnaghy's Hill
Collingwood River (wide and flowing)
Cool Creek
Scarlett Creek
Wildlife Dusk to Dawn (warning to motorists)
pink heath

___________________________Bees_____________________________(on a bar across a road)

Cardigan Creek
Patrolman's Creek
Snake Creek
Raglan Creek
Victoria Park
road winds like green snake inside the bush
(i think of Keira Knightley's Atonement dress.. the folds of)
Nelson Creek
Nelson River
Valley Creek
steam rising off the road/



more to follow