Anzac Park

All parks have their monument. Its a stake in the heart
that tethers them or wards off subdivision.
In Itchy Park, the obelisk I’d almost forgotten
listed the names of the First World War. They were Our Part
but we picked the black lettering of their initials out
from the marble. The names followed much the same pattern
as our roll call at school, though some had been lost or forgotten.
We weren’t the first, it took others before us to start.

But there was a time when dad got us all up out of bed
to join the Anzac Service at Itchy Park.
Flags and uniforms, and in the half dark
a bugle sharp as a penknife gouging the dead
out of their silence and flinging them into the dawn.
The bugle wept. Itchy Park offered the names up, every one.

Thomas W. Shapcott

Night Air

(for Dermot)

I love your walking in on me each night,
Not the usual wisp and tatter of the
Undressed ghost but resolute and bright
In your own clothes, outstretched hands saying

It is I. But come and see, outside this room
The salvias still bloom, the window breathes
Warm air through rattan slats, in the French door
Shines the bronze haze of the chrysanthemums.

Strange, you are not reflected there. Needing
No space, you are in me. Come, sit down,
Your glass is filled. I thought my heart tomb dark
But love is rogue and it is I who call you

Sheila O'Hagan

Colors passing through us
Marge Piercy

Purple as tulips in May, mauve
into lush velvet, purple
as the stain blackberries leave
on the lips, on the hands,
the purple of ripe grapes
sunlit and warm as flesh.

Every day I will give you a color,
like a new flower in a bud vase
on your desk. Every day
I will paint you, as women
color each other with henna
on hands and on feet.

Red as henna, as cinnamon,
as coals after the fire is banked,
the cardinal in the feeder,
the roses tumbling on the arbor
their weight bending the wood
the red of the syrup I make from petals.

Orange as the perfumed fruit
hanging their globes on the glossy tree,
orange as pumpkins in the field,
orange as butterflyweed and the monarchs
who come to eat it, orange as my
cat running lithe through the high grass.

Yellow as a goat’s wise and wicked eyes,
yellow as a hill of daffodils,
yellow as dandelions by the highway,
yellow as butter and egg yolks,
yellow as a school bus stopping you,
yellow as a slicker in a downpour.

Here is my bouquet, here is a sing
song of all the things you make
me think of, here is oblique
praise for the height and depth
of you and the width too.
Here is my box of new crayons at your feet.

Green as mint jelly, green
as a frog on a lily pad twanging,
the green of cos lettuce upright
about to bolt into opulent towers,
green as Grand Chartreuse in a clear
glass, green as wine bottles.

Blue as cornflowers, delphiniums,
bachelors’ buttons. Blue as Roquefort,
blue as Saga. Blue as still water.
Blue as the eyes of a Siamese cat.
Blue as shadows on new snow, as a spring
azure sipping from a puddle on the blacktop.

Cobalt as the midnight sky
when day has gone without a trace
and we lie in each other’s arms
eyes shut and fingers open
and all the colors of the world
pass through our bodies like strings of fire.