INANNA TAKE TWO

To begin
I discard my television
it has hypnotised me with its electronic eye for too long
my computer which interprets my life into bits and bytes of binary code
zero one zero one zero one zero
my mobile phone that radio waves to others my voice
haiku short text messages
snap shots of the dog
and a short video of my washing billowing in a drying breeze.

Here I cast off my obsessions
My fanatical neatness
clothes hung in the order of refracted light
hats arranged according to seasons
pots, pans and cutlery marshalled in rows of military precision
polished surfaces reflecting, reflecting, reflecting every cup poured every pot stirred
my shoe collection, stilettos, mules, pumps, slippers, sneakers, runners, uggs, thongs, sandals, boots beaded, shinny, matt, laced, and every one in its place
I leave at the second gate

Now it is time for my animal companions
The backyard frogs whose raucous cry has spread with night’s blanket
across the neighbourhood as they colonise more and more ponds
my black and white muscovy ducks with gelid blue eyes embedded in coral
The chook presented to me by friends
All are told to STAY!

I relinquish my garden
The bamboo rattling in the wind
prayer flags flapping out prayers on every gust
grapevine clutching at the oak tree
bougainvilleas celebrating colour daily
wisteria enamoured with the ficus
a temple bell that ting ting tings with the rains
the peace bells which ring out on summer afternoons in the sea breeze
and the rock chime which only kling klang klongs when the east wind blows.
I surrender the race of the seasons, leaf fall, bud, shoot, blossom, bloom-spent,
seed-burst,
the urgent continual surge of growth and eye comforting green

Now the time to say farewell to
my landscape
I leave the salt lake awash with waves slowly drying to a crystal sea
I leave blue bush plains dotted with western myall bowed under the weight of creamy blossom
I leave the swaying expanse of fine, gold spinifex populated by the phantoms of women winnowing in the last afternoon light.
I leave gorges under the full moon, black rock walls holding up the glittering sky
I leave rock holes gouged by ice age glaciers now cupping a sweet sip of cool water.
I leave noon as the colour leaches into heat haze and the land
evaporates before your eyes

Abandoned at the sixth gate my poets voice
no more to
ambush rational thought
whisper in the silences
shout through the mundane
as it speaks the carmine blood language of the pulsing heart.

Weeping at the seventh gate –
my family

the dry kernel is taken under
in the dank the shrivelled core swells
an adventitious root shoots downward - an anchor in the dark
a plumule pale and urgent begins to journey upward
always and forever seeking
the shaft of clear white light.