Lugere

From the last wind through autumn lungs;
Across the endless ache of winter bones
Through the dark shadow on a spring mind;
Into the constant drought raping a summer heart

Ever changing seasons bring nought new life;
The passing years unease tormented souls
Tears no longer flowing; dry faucet, an empty well
Time steps solemnly to the beat of a silent drum

Every surface gathers dust, thick shrouds of mourning
Heavy drapes, closed against rotting boarded windows
Cobwebs fill the dark, dank, lifeless spaces,
They speak like tombstones in a soulless graveyard

Haunted by the memories of pride and glory left behind
Old dreams, broken promises, forgotten lives
Collected, hoarded, possessed and now unwanted
An obsessive compulsion of nostalgic sentiment

No breath nor life, no mind nor soul
A broken home, heart broken; forgotten and unforgiven
Take heed, a living corpse; have pity, the walking dead
Abandoned empty vessels, derelict zombie love

The Storm

Dark sky; ominous, billowing clouds. An eerie wind rustles through the bushes like a warning to life. Nothing else but a deathly silence quivering with the passage of time. Not a bird twitter, nor a dog bark. No motion from the row of houses along the beach head.

Even the footprints in the sand are now erased from existence. The wind twirls in the dunes, sending spirals of silica to lash at one another like medieval ghosts on the battlefield.

Wind against sand; sand against leaf and twig; branches flailing wildly in defense against an unseen foe. Grasses yield, bowing before the omnipotent force. Resistence is futile. Death and destruction is nigh. Submission, the only hope.

Light! Bright! The heavens aflame with bolts of electricity. The resounding crack of thunder follows. Lightning streaming across the horizon, dancing on the rising sea. Wretched fireflies swarming in mass to attack.

Waves rush onto the beach, seeping through weed and debris. Trying to escape from oncoming onslaught. They crash and pound against the weathered groin. The rocks have faced this enemy many times before. Just as before, they refuse to succumb this time also. They will not yield though the waves are relentless.

Crack! Boom! The heavens open and unleash a torrent of rain upon the earth and sea. The ocean rises up to warmly greet its kin, absent for too long. Waves peak; stretching and dragging the droplets of life's pure essence back to their home.

The thirsty earth inhales the precipitation, greedily absorbing ever droplet as if it were the last of its kind. Heavy droplets smash into the dry soil leaving craters as if from a meteorite shower.

Soon the land is awash. Tiny rivers form from every dune top or grassy knoll. Streaming down through the gullies and small valleys. Winding and converging in a race back towards the sea. Rivulets and streams combine at every new junction, flowing with greater and greater force.

No longer content with its own passage, the water drags with it leaf and litter from around the base of each bush. It sweeps away the sand, revealing naked gnarled roots, threatening to remove the foundations of the green infrastructure. Challenging the sanctity of life.

Destruction and chaos in a micro level. Life upheaved by wind and rain. Yet the irony of the new life it creates is not lost. Nature is an irony. From death there is new life.

Friendship

A short speech I gave at a Junior Chamber function in Fremantle in 1998.

Around the corner I have a friend

    In this great city that has no end,

Yet the days go by and the weeks rush on,

    And before I know it, a year is gone

And I never see my old friend's face,

    For life is a swift and terrible race.



Yet, he knows I like him just as well,

    As in the days when I rang his bell,

And he rang mine. We were younger then,

    And now we are busy, tired men

Tired of playing a foolish game

    Tired of trying to make a name



"Tomorrow", I say, "I’ll call on Jim

    Just to show that I'm thinking of him."

But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes,

    And distance between us grows and grows.

Around the corner! … yet miles away,

    Here's a telegram sir - "Jim died today."



And that's what we get,

    and deserve in the end.

Around the corner,

    a vanished friend.



[Src: Around The Corner by Henson Towne]

"I received this poem in December last year just two days after a close friend suddenly died.

His death and this poem opened my eyes to how we take our friendships for granted. How we replace life’s important tasks with life’s urgent chores, and then regret those lost moments of pleasure.

Society conditions us to anticipate a busy life in which we run out of time for the things that are important and that our friends will wait, patiently, last in line behind the rest of our life.

Perhaps a true friend will wait, but would you? Or would you continue in your busy lifestyle, placing them at the back of your line?"

A friend is one who believes in you

    when you have ceased to believe in yourself.



A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart

    and can sing it to you when you have forgotten the words.



A real friend is one who walks in when

    the rest of the world walks out.



[Author(s) unknown]

"I wasn’t close to my friend, not as close as I could have been. I certainly took more than I gave, always thinking I would make it up later ... when I had some time. But I ran out of time.

The funeral service overflowed, I did not realise the extent to which he had shared his friendship, and yet he always had time for me."

Some people come into our lives and quickly go.

    Some people move our souls to dance.

They awaken us to new understanding

    with the passing whisper of their wisdom

Some people make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon.

    They stay in our lives for a while,

leave footprints on our hearts

    and we are never, ever, the same.



[by Flavia Weedn]

"Set aside some friendship building time and place it in your diary just as you would any other important task your busy life requests. Make time to stay in contact and be available 24 hours a day to those who need your ear.

And at the end of the day, when you get that telegram saying Jim is dead, you will look back and be glad that you shared that small moment just yesterday."