Tanya Marwood
Expat
© 1997 by Tanya Marwood and gangan books australia
Expatriate
So, here am I -- expatriate
Stranger to this land.
I feel the searing winds of loneliness
Blow fire, then frost across my heart.
Can I endure the emptiness --
The trackless desert within?
Who will help me?
To whom can I turn?
In a shattering of comforting illusion,
There's the terrible wave of realisation
That the answer is, as ever,
Myself -- and myself alone.
Precipice
Ever and always on the brink
On the terrifying, gut-wrenching edge
Staring wild-eyed into the abyss
Of possible success
Possible failure
An infinity pregnant with possibility...
Step out and over?
Are you insane?
What if I fall forever?
Agonising, bone-crushing death
Succeeded by oblivion
Would be preferable to eternity in free-fall
I hear it spoken that there is One
Who always will catch
In gentle, loving arms
Those brave souls who launch themselves
Over the edge.
Perhaps it is so...
What if, in launching myself
Over that terrifying precipice
I fell and fell and fell
The wind roaring past my twisting body
Then I found an astonishing thing --
That all the time, I had wings?
My Beloved Poseidon
Beautiful, untamed Poseidon!
Forever God of my heart!
Thou blue-green leviathan
Who breathes a bracing salt-spray upon the shores of my consciousness
Tossing at my foam-caressed feet endless gifts of shell, coral, glistening emerald weed
Shelter of magnificence, home of eternal silences
Restless mirror of the ephemeral sky
Again and again I am drawn to thee
Source of all life -- thou wild-maned, joyful one
Out from the golden shore, I turn to the sky
Sensing the cradle of cool blue arms
Supporting me, lulling me, loving me
How blissful to lie here in surrender to thee -- my beloved Poseidon
Gently rising and falling upon thy breast
Whilst sand-warmed breezes caress my face and thine
Then turning once more to bury my face in thy beloved azure locks
I pull myself to the shore
To lie once more in ecsatic contemplation upon the sundrenched strand
Evening
Luxurious, luminous lavender
Smudging rose-petal into lucent silvery blue,
Sweetly shining sixpenny moon.
River -- a ruffled satin silvered surface;
Sibilant, salt-laden, seabreeze
Billowing spinnakered sailing craft,
Tacking sharply, gracefully, in unison.
Sultry shadows advancing,
Velvety resting places for winged friends.
Turning home, toward golden pools of light
Spilling from windows along the avenues
Gateway, rose and jasmine crowding the path;
Doorway and the aroma of food
Prepared by loving hands.
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