G’day readers. As this tender weekend approaches — my mother’s birthday tomorrow, my wife’s funeral day, and Mother’s Day on Sunday here in Australia — I’m returning to a poem from September 2019 for today’s Throwback Friday. It feels like the right one to hold all of that.
Me, sitting on Mum’s knee. … L to R, Carole, Aunties Elizabeth & Pearl, & Grandma
Grandma and her 3 daughters. … My mum (left) and her lady relatives
The Woman In Me
Inside every man There is a woman
The mother of his soul The lady of his heart The kindness in his touch The passion in his blood
The woman who fostered The way he shows love
For all the women who shaped our hearts, let this melody bloom again.
These four couplets unfold like stepping stones — small pauses across the quiet waters of loss. Each one holds a moment of recognition, a shift in understanding, a breath before the next step. Paired with Leonard Cohen’s “Teachers,” the poem traces the lessons we never received, and the ones we learn only by walking toward them
Life’s Missing Teacher
I never found a teacher, who taught me how to grieve.
The unforeseen creature was difficult to perceive.
After unplugging her extension cord, time was always near.
While wandering toward the edge of life’s weathered pier.
Today’s Throwback poem was written before I started my website and is from June 2012, not long after Carole passed away (14 years ago, May 3rd). For reasons I can’t quite explain, this nostalgic piece never found its way into any of my three books. Maybe this unheralded poem will finally nudge me toward completing my fourth.
Where’s That Dream
I have seen the universe through to the stars beyond There is a deep darkness; she is gone. She is gone I saw her smile crack from the pain There was a sorrow, she caught it tomorrow
I have seen the moon through the burning sun Where is that planet she is walking on? I saw her eyes crying tears of sand Where is that beach she is lying on?
I have seen the ocean through the broken coral Where is that ship she is sailing on? I saw her body serene and frail Where are the ashes she is covered in?
I have seen the earth open, swallowing the multitude whole Where is that chasm she is falling through? I saw her gentle soul disappear out of sight Where is that secret haven she is flying to?
I have seen the land go through violent storms Where are the winds of time she is spread upon? I saw her heart, her love, for all of you and me Where is that dream she has left us to find?
Today’s Throwback Friday poem (originally written in July 2022) is drawn from my third book, Until Eyes Hear Sound. It appears in Chapter 5: Observation, Until Eyes Hear Sound.
A Torn Thesaurus
With my fiddle and riddles Here in the middle Of this unopened universe Time spirals in reverse
Quills fly in from cyberspace As alien words unravel and interlace A torn thesaurus is my database I wonder Have I landed in the right place?
At our Dome group meeting, Jen — our chairperson — said, “I’m not here next meeting, so we need to choose a theme for next month.” A few of us laughed, and someone replied, “Well, I’m Not Here sounds like a theme in itself.” And just like that, the idea settled over us, light as a wink.
The Geelong Library and Heritage Centre … affectionately known as The Dome.
This image shows someone holding three cups and the cups are made in the image of a woman’s face. The expression on the three cups are slightly different from each other.
I’m Not Here
I’m not here — I’m in limbo, behind a solitary glass window, there on the north side of the Dome; it stands out like a fairy’s magical home.
I’m not here, but I am somewhere high above the Gingko in the fresh air, where I hear the fairy Godmother’s vacant chair whisper haunting poetic quotes by Voltaire.
“Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.” ~ Voltaire “The right to free speech is more important than the content of the speech.” ~ Voltaire “Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all; and others, to persecute those who do reason.” ~ Voltaire
And still, from that quiet window in the Dome, I’m not here — yet somehow feeling at home.
Somewhere between presence and absence, the music carries what words can’t quite hold.
A special poem I wrote, after I’d taken my Lady to the hospital for the last time, on the day of her 65th birthday, fourteen years ago.
Hello Carole, time goes by, and my heart has not moved …
Under The Snow
We emanate to a birthday. We deflate to a final day. Birthdays, they all come, they all go. Birthdays, in the sunshine, under the snow. Birthdays, slow to mature, quickly an eon. Birthdays, before we are born, after we are gone. Birthdays, hanging on by a breath. Birthdays, nailed to a cross ’til death. What does it all mean to be alive and cry? What does it all mean to live and to die?
Time Hears No Sound, Cover Reveal (by Kerri Costello) Today, I’m delighted to reveal the front and back covers of Time Hears No Sound. There’s a quiet magic in these designs, and I hope you feel it too.
The artwork comes from my Philadelphia niece, Graphic Design Artist Kerri Costello, whose creative touch has shaped the covers of my last three books—Tullawalla, Perceptions, and Until Eyes Hear Sound.
The disintegrating clock at the centre of the cover reflects the book’s core idea: that time is less a mechanism than a mystery. The warm sky mirrored in the lake suggests memory’s calm surface, while the darker tones around the edges hint at the silences and shadows the poems explore. Together, the colours and imagery echo the journey of the collection—where time drifts, dissolves, and reveals what it cannot say aloud.
To accompany the cover reveal, here’s the Tanka that closes the collection:
Timeless (a Tanka)
Once upon a time At the beginning of time What was before time? Where’s the origin of time? Infinity is timeless
As the weekend’s protest thread continues, this poem looks at what we count — and what we choose not to.
VJ’s article on holding to a deeper “why” nudged me toward this poem — a poignant protest shaped by questions of time, land, and what we risk by looking away. Her story is below—the spark behind this poem. >> Having a Why – One Woman’s Quest
Also, over at Weekly Prompts, the Weekend Challenge is the word Invasive. To visit their fabulous site, please click >> Here
Handless Watchbands, or Who’s Counting
How many grains of sand are left in the ancient hourglass? Why are the Holy grasslands a desert full of misguided missiles and handless watch bands?
How many missiles do the leaders in Versailles have to count before the amount is called genocide?
For what we cannot look away from, let the song bear witness.
