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Saturday 27 October 2012

'Oh Bobby'

                   Welcome!
gelder roses

The garden is flourishing this spring. Blooms are larger, more voluptuous than they have been for some years. I would like to think it was because of my attentions, but I suspect it’s mostly two years of adequate rains and milder temperatures. The gelder roses have never been such an impressive size. I hope the conditions continue to favour my new plants, replacements for the many we lost because of drought and water restrictions. If I have chosen well and been faithful in establishing them, the new plants will thrive when the next drought comes – an Australian certainty.

This week we have the second poem of the trilogy, ‘The futility of attempting capture’. The first poem is also shown (in grey) so that you can see the first two parts together. Stay tuned for the final in a fortnight (and an unrelated story next week, for those who prefer fiction to poetry).

Calling card
This morning I communed with a rosella
through the dusty glass of my window.
He perched on a swaying twig of bottlebrush,
seeking a companion
with the ringing call of his kind,
glowing red and orange in the sunshine.
Then he turned an eye towards me
and began bobbing and chucking like a budgie,
inquiring.
With gentle movement, talking and singing,
I sent him on his search with a blessing.
                 
My friend rosella was, vividly tangible,
God’s calling card,
for I, too, had been looking for company,
responding to the song of the creator
and listening, heart open, to his words
as he blessed me on my way.


‘Oh Bobby’
I called him Bobby after that first visit
when he’d warmed my heart
and charmed my imagination with his antics of bird curiosity.
He returned to that lichened twig by my window
several times a day
and I determined to capture it,
to celebrate our friendship
with a photograph, framed
neatly by the window (now washed).

Friendship, huh.

‘Oh Bobby’ became the wail of my longing
as all that remained of every attempt –
me creeping close with the camera poised
while he watched with one eye,
twitched and flew before the shutter closed.
The best I managed was a blurry shot, claimed
in triumph
and accidentally erased the same day –
all that remained was the flash of colour as he retreated,
to return another time with
his luring call and practised nonchalance.

Until next week…
Claire Belberg

Saturday 20 October 2012

Local Colour

                         Welcome!
broody Izzy

Some days seem very long. I love daylight saving and the light in the evenings, and the fact that until the end of December our days will get longer. But today’s length is increased by sorrow. The death of a young man, suddenly last night, has us all in the shock that makes a dragging timelessness. Oddly, our chicken shares the malaise, but in her case it’s because we discovered the secret egg cache – she’s gone broody. So, just like us, she stands and stares, oblivious to her surroundings.

Farewell, 'Little Sam'. Cook up a feast in heaven.

Our story this week is a different matter, a quietly colourful contemporary piece.


Local Colour

It looked like rain, which was a pity because Shirley had set up the courtyard for her afternoon soiree. The garden was looking delightful right now, with azaleas and camellias competing to add the brightest hue. The sullen sky made a perfect backdrop for the gorgeous display but Shirley suspected her guests would not appreciate that artistic detail. With a sigh she returned to the house with the tea tray.
            On the face of it, this was simply an afternoon tea for her friends. But Shirley had a problem, and she hoped that by observing these particular people together, she might find a solution.
            The doorbell rang, and before she could answer it, her friend Anthea let herself in. She entered the kitchen by one door as Shirley walked through another towards the sunroom.
            'What can I do to help?' she asked.
            'Do you think the five of us will fit comfortably in here?' Shirley said. She explained her change of plans. 'At least we can see some of the colour from here.'
            'I love this room,' Anthea replied, with a rapt expression she often wore around Shirley. 'You make everything beautiful inside and out.'
            'Give me a hand with that chair, would you?' Shirley pointed to a dining chair like the one she was carrying. 'Put it on the other side of the table. Thanks.'
            They arranged the chairs around a glass-topped coffee table. Then the doorbell rang again.
            'I'll get it,' Anthea said.
            Shirley put the kettle on, removed her apron, and walked out to greet the next guest.
            'Darling, this is Felipe. You don't mind that I invited him to join us, do you?' Louise did not wait for the reply that Shirley could hardly make without rudeness, and turned to the moustached man just behind her. 'This is Shirley, who I told you all about. She painted that still life in the shop behind the counter.'
            Felipe bowed over Shirley's hand, which gave her the first inkling of why this stranger to Riverlea had suddenly gained Louise's favour. He was well-groomed, probably in his late fifties, with dark eyes, and long black hair tied in a neat pony tail. An arty type, she suspected, adding the second inkling to Louise's presumption. It was odd that people assumed all artists would relate well to each other, as if the act of creativity was a rare bond.
            'Welcome. Come in, come in. Is it raining yet?' Shirley showed them to the sunroom as the first drops darkened the paving stones beyond the window. She settled the three there and collected the kettle from the kitchen. She poured the hot water through the filter into the coffee pot on its portable element, and went to fill the kettle again.
            The doorbell rang. She opened it to find her two remaining guests huddling in the tiny porch in expectation of a deluge. She showed them into the sunroom. Ted was loud enough to fill the room on his own, a factor she had forgotten to take into account.
            Eventually the coffee and tea were brewed, the guests were filling their cups, and the cakes were doing the rounds. Denley had brought another dining chair through and the five guests were squeezed into the small room with Shirley's chair filling the doorway.
            Ted pushed his chair back the little it could move before bumping the wall. 'Here's to Shirley, and her spreading fame. May it bring prosperity to Riverlea.' He waved his orange teacup in the air. It looked like it belonged to a child's set in his meaty hand. So far, so good.
            'No, no, Ted. This isn't a civic function, so let's forget the speeches.' Shirley waved him into his seat before taking the remaining cup, a black one, and sitting down to drink her coffee.
            'Everything's a civic function to Ted,' Louise sniped. 'He's trying to turn Riverlea into the business district of Fairbanks. I think,' she said with emphasis, 'the charm of our town is its tasteful specialty stores and olde worlde charm.'
            'Your antique store is very tasteful, madame,' Felipe acknowledged with a smile, taking the red cup. Louise's face lost its tightness and she sat back, clearly pleased.
            'Shirley, your garden has the olde worlde charm Louise mentioned. Maybe the business council should commission you to design some public gardens where that vacant block is next to Turner's,' Denley suggested.
            Ted butted in before Denley had finished his words. 'Shirley's got enough to do already without that. We have plans, you know, for that spot, which I can't go into. Of course, Shirley would do a lovely job with it, for sure.' He stopped, reddening as Shirley gave him a stern look. 'I mean, um, you know, this garden and all her paintings and so on isn't that right?'
            Shirley smoothed over Ted's confusion by offering another round of coffee and tea.
            Denley said, 'So tell me, Felipe, where do you come from? How do you know Louise?' He leaned forward, his usual blue cup in hand. He was an excellent listener.
            Felipe told how his search for a particular piece of cello music had him scouring antique shops. He played cello in an orchestra in the city, and collected rare music.
            'He's a lucky man,' Louise added. She refilled her yellow cup with tea. She did love that colour, thought Shirley with an inner smile.
            Anthea looked puzzled. 'Because he found your shop? Did you have the music?'
            Shirley noticed Felipe's surprised look, quickly covered with an enigmatic smile.
            'No, unfortunately I've never heard of the music. What I meant was, as soon as Felipe walked into the shop, I knew he had an aura of good luck. Surely you can sense it.'
            Shirley wanted to laugh. Louise had a 'gift' which enabled her to identify special people. It was clear from the others' expressions that they had their share of stories, as she had, about Louise's 'special' people.
            Felipe was protesting as Ted boomed, 'If he's got friends with money to spend in Riverlea, we'll all agree with Louise.'
            Denley gave Shirley a sympathetic glance and said, 'I think we're the lucky ones to have a musical artist among us.'
            Shirley found Felipe's alternations of expression amusing. She caught his eye and winked. His smile twitched and he took advantage of the view from his position to change the topic.
            'You are the artist of note here,' he commented quietly in his hostess's direction. 'That still life is excellent. I could almost smell the roses. Were they from your beautiful garden?'
            Shirley nodded, but before she could say anything, Ted jumped in. 'Shirley is the face of our latest tourist campaign. She'll bring those big dollars here if anyone can. Wait till you see what she's working on now.' He sat tall and proud, knowing that he and Shirley were the only ones in the room who had any idea of what he was talking about. And Ted had not even seen her current work himself. All Shirley could do was distract them again. She fussed over the table, asking each visitor if they would like another cup of tea or coffee, proffering the remaining cupcakes as insistently as Ted with a potential customer, until in all the bustle, one of the fine china cups, the red one, fell onto the floor and broke with a shattering sharpness. Everyone jumped, and then talked at once.
            Anthea put her favourite mauve cup down with care and fetched the brush and pan, while Denley took the rest of the crockery to the kitchen. Shirley insisted on sweeping up the red shards herself, so Anthea went to help Denley with the washing up. Shirley took the contents of the pan to another room.
            When she returned, Louise commented, 'You can just put another cup and saucer in your collection and no one will be the wiser.'
            Shirley smiled. Her problem was rapidly solving itself. Louise began to describe in detail every item of crockery in her shop and its age and history, while Ted asked Felipe if he liked the horse races. Denley and Anthea did not return until some time later, and Shirley was pleased to notice the flush of colour in her friend's happy face.
            They all left as the clouds cleared and the last of the sun's rays cast a golden glow on the watered village. Shirley saw them to the gate before taking the garden route to her studio, which stood as a separate building just beyond the back door. She turned on the light, and studied the shattered cup, comparing its colour to a large board with an almost completed mosaic design.
            There they all were, in patterned portrait: Ted with an orange tie, Louise in a yellow dress, Denley wearing a blue shirt, Anthea with a mauve ribbon in her hair. All that was missing was the centrepiece, the image of what brought them together. She had had many ideas to represent the community, but until now the right one had evaded her. The best answers were often the simplest.
            'Felipe's red cup. Perfect. I wonder if they'll remember it when it's unveiled.' She fitted the shards of the broken crockery into the space, noting which would need to be cut to form the shape of a large cup in the centre of the scene. She could use the saucer to make more pieces.
            This mosaic was destined to become a permanent fixture on the wall of the civic offices in the centre of Riverlea, at the opening of Ted's latest endeavour to put the village on the tourist map. And one ordinary cup – the colour of the stranger in their midst – would be worked in to create something new and beautiful, celebrating in more ways than one the local colour of Riverlea.


Until next week…
Claire Belberg

Saturday 13 October 2012

Calling Card

                   Welcome!
bottlebrush flower

The cold is lasting longer than usual this year. I have usually turned my heater off by now, not to be used again until April. Huge power bills notwithstanding, we continue to huddle in front of the heater while the temperature fluctuates like a faulty gauge. I keep reminding myself that the week the rain ceases and the sun unleashes its full power, we’ll all be moaning about how unbearably hot it is, or living in dread of a bushfire. At least our gardens are still green and flourishing, and the smell of smoke does not strike fear. Hooray for the mild seasons!

This week’s poem is the first of a trilogy which I will present over the next five weeks as its component poems, and then put them all together on the last week. I’ll intersperse short stories, as usual, so that those who prefer prose can still find their goodies.

Calling card
This morning I communed with a rosella
through the dusty glass of my window.
He perched on a swaying twig of bottlebrush,
seeking a companion
with the ringing call of his kind,
glowing red and orange in the sunshine.
Then he turned an eye towards me
and began bobbing and chucking like a budgie,
inquiring.
With gentle movement, talking and singing,
I sent him on his search with a blessing.

My friend rosella was, vividly tangible,
God’s calling card,
for I, too, had been looking for company,
responding to the song of the creator
and listening, heart open, to his words

as he blessed me on my way.


Until next week…
Claire Belberg

Saturday 6 October 2012

His Xanadu

                             Welcome!
my first rose of the season
The Adelaide Hills growing season is typically about six weeks behind the Plains, or at least mine is when compared with a friend’s garden in the northeastern suburbs.  Yellow-flowering plants have a tough time in my garden because they normally prefer full sun and my garden is mostly semi-shade. I really enjoy the yellow roses that add floral sunshine to my view.


The short story this week centres on a garden, a far more planned and perfected one than mine. Nevertheless, all is not as it seems in paradise…

His Xanadu
The air is warm and sweet with the subtle scents of pine and citrus mingled with just the right amount of frangipani. Michael breathes it in slowly, each step of his sojourn in the garden of his dreams bringing a new and exquisite cocktail of fragrance. Living perfume, he says to himself. As glorious, as perfect as the forms of the plants which offered these delectable aromas, as the fluorescence of the flashing wings of parrots fluttering among the delicate marble turrets above him, as the melodious thrummings of the harp strings hidden within those spires.
            How he had laboured to build his dream, the palace to surpass the fabled pleasure-dome of Kublai Khan himself. He had planned, he had sought craftsmen inculcated in the mastery of their trade, sourced the matchless materials, he had watched and inspected, corrected, even demanded parts rebuilt until the dream was satisfied. Now all that remained to be done was to revel in the feast to his senses that unfolded each waking day within his paradise, his Xanadu.
            Scanning again the indescribable beauty all around him, his senses heightened, Michael notices movement on the path ahead of him. Looking more closely, he sees a Rottweiler nosing something on the ground, something small and living. He steps closer, still more conscious of the mellifluous tumble of the crystal stream than the rumble of the dog's response to its toy.
            The dog plays with a mouse. Michael watches absently, his well-ordered paradise still joyful. Suddenly the dog jumps, pouncing almost catlike on the small creature, and Michael is roused from his reverie. The worrying of the great black beast at the defenseless mouse stirs a gust of passion within the man.
            'Leave it alone, Shadow,' he commands. The dog pays no attention.
            The contempt of the dog goads Michael to unpremeditated action. He picks up a stone from the gravel bed next to the path, an angular weight of pink marble which fits comfortably into the crook of his fingers, and throws it at the black dog.
            Now the dog heeds him. An initial yelp, a savage bite, and then its tail between its legs and its nose dripping, it looks at Michael. Waiting.
            Michael's sight is fixed on the spreading drops of bright blood splashing onto the pristine white of the paved path. Worse is the sporadic thrashing of a piece of grey fur at the dog's feet. Michael's stomach clenches.
            He strokes the dog's head. 'Poor Shadow, your snout is hurt.' The dog's tail thumps once, twice. 'Go,' Michael commands. The dog obeys, trotting off in the direction the man points, its nails clipping the stone with a faint 'tick, tick' and a thin trail of blood marking the way.
            There by the misplaced stone lies the mouse, broken by the bite of the surprised dog, neither dead nor alive. It cannot stay, this blot, this insult to beauty, this illogic in the perfectly logical. Michael wipes a suddenly sweaty brow. He is alone. He would have to finish it off. His stomach lurches, the stench of flesh strong in his nostrils, the ugliness of death taking place in the heart of beauty's realm a travesty which offends him to the core. He will not allow himself to be sullied by this act. He tears at a nearby tree, ripping a broad leaf from the bough, splintering the soft timber. He nudges the leaf under the twitching rodent and stands. With carefully controlled steps, avoiding the spattered trail, he walks to the water and throws the malodorous bundle into the singing stream which carries it away, out of sight.
            Michael sighs, a deep breath as of a man recovering from a blow to the chest. It is gone. He takes another path. Yet he feels disturbed. How had his paradise been invaded by such ugliness? What force is at work to disrupt and destroy the glory he has created?
            He paces his paradise, oblivious to its charms as he wrestles with foreboding.


Until next week…
Claire Belberg

Monday 1 October 2012

Waiting, watching


Welcome!
Native hibiscus (alyogyne)
It’s a wonderful thing that the spring-flowering plants don’t change their minds like the weather. Can you imagine if all the flowers of camellia, wisteria, flowering fruits, and Australian native plants like the pictured alyogyne, westringia, prostanthera, etcetera opened on the sunny days and hid on the cloudy ones? Those would be particularly dismal days. But the flowers, having made their choice to bloom, go boldly onward.

These changeable days are for living as much as any other day, but they also seem to say, ‘Wait and watch! Summer is coming.’ The ‘stream of consciousness’ poem below is not about spring but it plays with the same idea, as the name suggests.


Waiting, watching
           
Sun bright
on my paper, pen shadowed
in sharp relief.
            DON'T WALK
Man with sunglasses waiting
at traffic lights, craning
to see the sign,
waiting
jiggling.
Gleaming silver cars stop.
            WALK
towards stunted plants in terracotta
brown-tipped leaves sparse
trapped, collecting fumes
memorial to a million passing cars.
Nature inserted at strategic points.
            DON'T WALK
I chose this place
sitting in the sun, watching.
Eating quiche and salad with a view
justifies spying,
plate glass window my screen
between the world walking by
and my curiosity
            WALK
Old man totters
jaywalking up the road,
just a few steps closer to the post office,
while drivers wait,
tapping.
            DON'T WALK
Sun intensifies through glass,
melts the chocolate waiting for me
on the saucer of vienna coffee.
I eat sporadically,
write quickly to capture
images, and snatches of thought they inspire.
Lettuce and balsamic vinegar
      whatever happened to iceberg and vinaigrette?
Wilted image, names without lyric
now we have rocket
                                    oakleaf           
                                                   mignonette but no crunch.
            WALK
A shopper strides past my window, staring in,
the watcher watched
           
But I was eating, not writing,
wrestling to fork leaves with no crunch.
            DON'T WALK
My mouth waters, waiting as
food falls from my fork, splattering into balsamic puddle,
soggy, tangy carrot
browned off with vinegar.
And the quiche, enticing,
tasteless.
            WALK
Young legs in black stockings,
two girls saunter in unison,
tartan skirts short-changed
like their hours of schooling
this winter's day.
            DON'T WALK
I watch from the corner of my eye;
'uniforms' but
not the same shape
not unformed
not anonymous
my daughters' peers.
            WALK           
Ah, there's the bank's security man
on his lunch break,
sees me
knows me?
Does familiarity compromise integrity?
            DON'T WALK
I remember.
I remember this place
this piece of ground
used to be Penno's Hardware,
boots and wheelbarrows,
meet your neighbours on Saturday morning.
Now a coffee shop changing
ownership as regularly
as the traffic lights its windows frame.
            DON'T WALK
Time
to drink that waiting coffee.
Sure enough, the chocolate
has melted onto the sun-warmed spoon,
wasted on the paper doily.
I lick the spoon,
lick the inside rim of the latte glass,
wasting nothing;
wasting no memories,
holding them in the sun,
tasting them again
more satisfying than coffee and chocolate.
Coffee gone.
Chocolate eaten.
Fingers licked.
Warm in the sun
Lights change, cars stop, people cross.
I watch
            DON'T WALK
I wait to capture time.


Until next week…
Claire Belberg