Ashes

Carol Leff

The family graveyard in Schuinsdrift is filling up, the earth still loose after Lanz’s early departure. “Avec wine, women and song” reads Uncle Alf’s epitaph, testament to how he lived. Aunt Hazel, who rode a Harley on her 80th, lies a tight fit between Granny’s feet and the doringdraad fence. Rosebushes from Italy flower over mounds that hone bones of young cousins. When I go, do not bury me here (you know I am claustrophobic!) but rather scatter my ashes near the eye of the Marico river so I may return to the source.

[Avbob Poetry Project 2017 / stanzas 13, Sept 2018]

Featured on 8 April 2021

The Nuthatch

Bernard O’Donoghue

I couldn't fathom why, one leafless Cloudcast morning he appeared to me, Taking time off from his rind-research To spread his chestnut throat and sing Outside my window. His woodwind Stammering exalted every work-day For weeks after. Only once more I saw him, quite by chance, among The crowding leaves. He didn't lift His head as he pored over his wood-text. Ashamed of the binocular intrusion, Like breath on eggs or love pressed too far, I'm trying to pretend I never saw him.

Featured on 11 March 2021

Old Woman's River

Sarah Frost

The river under the trees

soft, dark, still.

Black the water that

reflects webbed branches, bending low.

The sea is ebbing:

it has left a beach bare as bone.

Pale, it stretches empty

hands towards the receding light.

People came to the river mouth;

Their voices folded like woodsmoke into the afternoon air

Holding them in an embrace brown as sun-warmed skin

Within the womb of the milkwoods’ quiet shade.

The lagoon shears open into the dusk

All I find here is absence, absence

A girl swimming the far bank

Leaves a wake of white that disperses

Like a cloud in wind, irretrievable.

Featured on 18 February 2021