COVID-1

I miss people, indifferent to distance

April 2020

U-Boot (a love poem)

Amanda Surrey, 2014

Mass

1:  first the wind through the double doors

a valve pushed open a pulse in the air

down the red carpet's arterial design

the smell of perfume and crease of faces

an old woman's smile extinguishes all that preceded it

but kindness

2:  then the voices climbing reach a single note

late afternoon descends through the open windows

while ceiling fans sweep and rearrange His words

outside they fall swollen to the ground

you know the way the light is in here?

heavy and green

3:  I've missed you

and the company you keep

a place at your table

saved for me

Amanda Surrey, published in the Record, Winter 2010

My France

A short story of mine long in the making has been published in Hecate, the Interdisciplinary Journal of Women's Liberation from the University of Queensland.  It begins .....

I’ve never been to France, but it pops up in my dreams every now and then, like an old friend back in town for a few days. I’ll wake up in the morning with the details a little hazy, but with one clear thought: I dreamt I was in France last night.

It’s beyond me why I’m always so certain it’s France. I wonder whether the textbooks I was forced to read during those long gloomy years at High School, with sleep inducing titles like, "The History, Geography and Culture of France", painted an impression which persists simply because I’ve never replaced them with the real thing. If that were the case, the France I dream about would be stuck in the nineteen-sixties. School textbooks are always hopelessly out of date.

You see, I dream of a modern country, not sepia toned and awash with garish polo necks. I'm pointing this out from the start in case you've been there. I know some people set great store by detail, accurate detail, especially when it comes to storytelling. You should know before we proceed any further, that I’m dispensing with accuracy and writing about France – my France – as it appears in my dreams.

..... to read the rest of this story track down the latest issue 42.16.

Eureka! (I am as large as the city, I am larger than you)

kenni: lower case k, i not y

My cat kenni died on Friday 20 January.  It was a fateful day - Donald Trump was sworn in as POTUS and a man using his car as a lethal weapon plowed into a busy street in Melbourne killing 5 people, a 6th dying a week later in hospital.  kenni, lying on the front porch just after 1 pm took one last visible breath as I sat beside her, stroking her lightly into this passing away.  My partner Melinda sat beside me reading a Tibetan prayer:

'As I leave this compound body of flesh and blood

I will know it to be a transitory illusion' 

Padmasambhava, Tibetan Book of the Dead

kenni and I had been together for 18 years, the longest relationship in my life.  She was born in East St Kilda in a tiny shed.  The runt of the litter, her brothers and sisters had been claimed the day before I turned up to take the only one left.  It was a tough separation, she was too young to be whisked away from her mother but the elderly owners of the shed wanted to have all the kittens gone having tripped over one the year before, necessitating a hip replacement.  

She sat in the palm of my hand, a tiny tortoiseshell.  'Naughty torti's' are infamous with vets for being short fused and cantankerous.  Certainly, she was both and she lived up to her reputation.  The vet clinic had a warning on their computer system for new vets and nurses who hadn't seen her before: 'WARNING, TURNS QUICKLY'.  (kenni and I had a lot in common.)

She was a law unto herself, she never wore a collar and she wasn’t microchipped.  I never wanted to domesticate her or turn her into a pampered pet. She could come and go as she pleased, a window or a cat door always open for her. 

She taught me a lot: I learned to read her, especially when she was about to launch a vicious attack using her teeth and claws to extract quite substantial amounts of blood.  But as the years passed she mellowed, spending a lot more time on my bed, following me around the house and eventually, beyond all belief, she'd sleep on me at night.  

I'd started reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying last year, and in retrospect it was prescient.  As a practicing Buddhist I had always wondered how I would approach her death and the precept I hold not to kill.  When I took her to the vets for the last time I knew before the blood tests came back confirming chronic kidney failure, that she was dying.  

I spoke to her vet about the options given my wish not to euthanise, and while I didn't want to put her down, I didn't want her in pain either.  She was prescribed morphine which I administered once a day, and twice in the last 24 hours.  In the last week she parked herself in the front garden during the day, soaking up the sun, zonked out on meds, safe in her home.  It was heartbreaking watching her deterioration but she was home, and each night she slept on me for longer, finally nestling under my chin.

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying taught me what I already knew innately about death - that it is terrifying unless you face it, and, not to let your own grief overwhelm the dying.  Do all you can to make them peaceful, so, no wringing of hands or wailing in the streets.  I remember a monk several years ago advising us that death is not the time for those of us with troubled and unresolved relationships, especially with close family, to set the record straight.

Whether you are a Buddhist or not this is sound advice.

I miss you, my friend.

unpublished

a selection of unpublished poems streamed through word cloud.  clear predominance of the word like.  no one wonder they remain unpublished.