There's life in the old year yet

Welcome!

water in December

The old year draws to an end, dribbling out its final weary days as if all its hope has been transferred to the year about to begin. Isn’t it odd that a day at one point on the calendar should feel like it has less intrinsic value than another?

In Australia, these are the lazy days of summer when many people are on holidays, recovering from the frenzied build-up to Christmas and planning the far more casual New Year’s celebrations – beach, barbecue, all night parties and public firework shows. Some of us have more prosaic concerns, like keeping the garden alive as the moisture level of the soil shrinks and the rain is rare.

One of my motifs in living here in the Adelaide Hills is the creek which runs through our neighbourhood. When the creek is stagnant or dry, which is typical in summer, I languish. When the creek is bounding with white-crested enthusiasm after rain in winter, I feel the energy flow through me like laughter. Late December and a creek still flowing, albeit reluctantly, says to me that this year’s life is not over yet. Make every day count.

The poem for this week is a sonnet about another body of water: the Coorong in the south-east of South Australia. (See my blog called Grandy's House for more info.)

What is this grey and silent place, o'ercast

And windswept, lonely, featureless, yet held

In high esteem as nature unsurpassed?

The Coorong, where the sky and water meld.

Our island sails on through the monotone

As subtleties, the myst'ries of the grey

Emerge to fascinate, our senses hone,

And eerie bird calls cease to cause dismay.

See traces of the people who once stayed

In this secluded waterheld domain;

The mess of fishers' gear is being unmade,

While crushed-shell middens ancient dunes retain.

These lonely lands to creatures wild belong.

We leave, but ever hear its siren song.

The Coorong is not always grey but on a cloudy winter's day, as in the poem, its glory is muted.

Until next week…

Claire Belberg

Arrival

                         Welcome!

Star of Bethlehem

Coming to you in almost every garden and park in Australia, the Star of Bethlehem has made the transition from its native South Africa to herald the Christmas season in Oz too. The fact that it is common should not detract from its glories – hardy, evergreen, spectacular large, long-lasting blooms in one of my favourite colours. Not to mention the joy of snails, dozens of which can be found on any one plant.

The original Star was not, of course, common but its heralding of the birth of Christ, the God-man, spread the news with the same joyous abandon as the agapanthus. That one-off event in human history has generated millions who now celebrate His arrival, God entering the arena of human affairs as one of us. That’s a mind-blowing thought, worthy of a second glance.

I have here a story of another arrival, a far lesser one but perhaps one which many of us can identify with – the beginning of a new phase of life.

Arrival

The imposing arch of the massive front gate loomed over Marise. Here was a new world, a place to live and learn which was as different from the home she had known as anything perhaps could be.

Her boots scrunched on the gravel path leading to the double wooden front doors. Every sense was alert – the silence loud, the garden fragrance pungent, and the height of the red brick and sandstone building towering.

The left hand leaf of the front doors to the orphanage slid open, silent and seemingly aware of her approach. It was as if she were being drawn in without human knowledge or her own will, sucked into this entity which was foreign and yet would absorb her individuality and make her an indistinguishable part of the mass.

She shook her head slightly. Enough of these fancies! Her mama had been right – her imagination gave reality no chance.

She stepped up to the desk and asked for Sister Joseph. The nun's eyes narrowed as she tried to assess this new addition to the Orphanage family.  Apparently she passed the test. The nun smiled, and Marise breathed again. What might the alternative outcome have been? She crushed that thought mercilessly.

Marise had only a moment to look around the room before the presence of Sister Joseph pre-empted her actual entry to the waiting room.

"Welcome!" barked the nun and pointed the way Marise should walk. "I had forgotten that you would be arriving today, but all's well! We will have your place sorted out shortly! In the meantime, I will show you around, let you get your bearings before we launch you among the troops!" The nun hustled her through doorways, up and down stairs and along corridors that looked exactly like one another.

Get my bearings! thought Marise, pushing back the bite of bitter panic.

Sister Joseph beckoned for her to follow into a cavernous room filled with wooden tables and benches. At one end was the kitchen, with all the clatter of pots and pans signalling preparations for lunch already under way.

"This is where you will eat all your meals, although today you may eat in your room. They tell me that it's a bit overwhelming on the first day to confront all the new faces and the din of mealtimes in here. Though it will be just as cacophonous on your second day – it's up to you."  The nun gave Marise a look which seemed to say, "We'll see by your choice whether you've got the guts you'll need here." And Marise knew she had to find the courage somehow to eat her first lunch with the crowd.

She was grateful to leave the dining room for more of the endless corridors. After what seemed the circuit of the three-sided building, Marise found herself being shown a classroom.

"This is where you will begin your lessons each day. I'm sure one of the children will explain the system to you," Sister Joseph commented as she saw Marise's bewilderment at the many lists on the blackboard. That, it seemed, was as much prior instruction as Marise was going to get. Her mind reeled at the number and detail of the new things she would have to adjust to. It seemed that no amount of experience at other schools had prepared her enough for this one.

"I think you'll find the children at the Orphanage here, for the most part, very friendly and obedient. You need not worry, you will fit in in no time." Sister Joseph's attempt to erase the anxiety from Marise's face was met with a wan smile and an inward groan. Marise had not meant to show her feelings so obviously. She knew the value of a poker face, and she steeled herself to contain her desolate emotions.

"Ah, I think they have assigned you a bed now, so let's park those suitcases before I show you the library." Sister Joseph glanced at her watch and strode off with renewed energy, and a piece of luggage. Marise's shoulders ached with the weight of the other, and she wished for a moment that she had the nun's bulk which seemed to carry the case as if it were featherweight.

She peered into her assigned bedroom, and breathed a sigh of relief. She had not been sure how many others she would have to share a room with, but there was only one other bed. Only one person whose habits and foibles she would have to become familiar with, only one person who would know hers. She fervently hoped her roommate was a discreet person.

Sister Joseph looked again at her watch. It was large and masculine, much like her, though not unattractive. She sighed. "I'm sorry, I'm going to have to leave you to your own devices in the library. I have another newcomer to greet, but Sister Michael, our librarian, will be able to look after you better than I." Sister Joseph smilingly waved her to a door at the foot of a stairwell, and bustled off, Marise presumed, towards the reception.

Books. Wall to wall, floor to ceiling, books in serried ranks met Marise's eyes and her heart swelled with joy. Here, at last, was a place where she could feel at home. Her suitcase forgotten, Marise began to read the spines. She worked out the shelving system, wandering through the canyons of book-crammed shelves, her eyes lighting up as she recognised favourite authors. Time disappeared. 

She felt jolted awake by the awareness of a small dimpled nun standing at the end of the row.

"Another booklover, I see!" Her eyes twinkled and Sister Michael moved forward with outstretched hands to introduce herself. Marise relaxed after her first shock of reawakening to the real world.  Perhaps the Orphanage would have its compensations, even joys, after all, she thought.  Shaking off the dark fears and forebodings she had felt ever since she had known she would be sent here, she put her hands hesitantly into the nun's.

Marise found her voice.

"Thank you, Sister Michael. With a library like this, I think I will actually enjoy teaching here at the Orphanage."

And the two women, nun and novice, made their way to the dining room.

May you find this Christmas season full of extraordinary and common joys.

Until next week…

Claire Belberg 

And Do I Grieve?

                         Welcome!

summer dry
(compare with winter green in July)

As Christmas fast approaches, memories of earlier times jostle with the urgency of the present. Who will we celebrate with this year? Who is missing?

In Australia, Christmas is in summer. It can be scorching, it can be mild, sometimes it is cool and raining. Some families like to maintain the winter traditions of hot roast turkey, cranberry sauce and all the trimmings, followed by pudding with custard. Others throw a barbecue with prawns and snags, followed by a modern summer dessert. In my family we serve cold turkey and ham with salads, and place a bob each way for dessert – a traditional pudding and a pavlova.

The poem that follows is in memory of Phyl Stretton (1916-2007) who, as my honorary grandmother, spent several Christmases with us – and always asked for pavlova instead of pud.

And Do I Grieve?

I hold her hand again, the image burned

Into my thoughts of Phyl in recent days.

A hand surprising for its strength though she

Was failing, held in pain as cancer swelled

Her abdomen. Two years or maybe three

She'd hoped, believing medicine would save

Her from the worst. So when the doctor said,

'If this won't work, there's nothing more to do,'

She could not comprehend. I had to tell

It all again, and starkly spell it out

In letters large. Not only was it hard

For her to grasp the surgeon's careful words,

But she could not be comforted as I

By his expression, anguished and distressed;

My secondhand impressions did not paint

The scene sufficient to relieve the night,

For Phyl was blind; e'en so does age prepare

Us for the eve when this life's day shall end.

I knew her in the morning of my life

As fam'ly friend, and party drama queen.

At thirteen I had grown to trust her so

I'd sought her wisdom for my future plans.

Our paths diverged, locations far apart

And lives that intimated nothing more

Than distant memory we'd ever share.

Vicissitudes of life reversed our roles.

Her widowhood and accidents o'erwhelmed

Her, stole her will, her joie de vivre sapped.

A weekly visit then became routine,

The pattern set before we realised

The name of our relationship had changed –

She was a grandmother to me whose own    

Had lived so far away, they'd seemed unreal,

And I the grandchild she could never have.

These years together as she grew more frail

And independence slowly fell away

We spent by talking life: the daily now,

Her memories of theatre, friends, and war.

E'en then she rarely spoke of spouse or son,

The menfolk in her life a silent void –

Her father'd died in war when she was two –

Yet stories of her youthful lovers showed     

A need, perhaps, that never was fulfilled.

Romance came to her briefly at the end

Of her long life. Her friend, her 'lover', gave

Her final days a comfort and a joy.

Her love of feeling loved was like a girl's –

And he no less delighted. What a pair!

They quickly made a name among the staff;

Detractors had their say, and with just cause,

But he revealed his worth as she grew weak:

He rarely left her side, he went each day

To her in hospital, and he no youth.

I'd meet him there; we'd each take hand held out,

'With you both here, I've nothing more I need',

She'd say, her dry eyes closed, skin tissue-thin.

I found an hour all that I could bear

But faithful lover stayed with her all day,

All days. There was one special hour before

She came, at last, to her own bed, when we –

Myself, the chaplain, Phyl, beloved friend –

Received Communion, simple, deeply felt,   

Her fav'rite people joined by Heaven’s love

The first and only time. For faith was birthed

As age exacted tax on former health,

And heaven's vision comforted in part

The loss of what before had been her life –

The theatre, parties, long-held friendships – God

Had drawn her close, his death and life now hers.

We talked of him together and we prayed

The last time I was with her, holding hands.

I said, 'Goodbye', but only for the while

We'd be on holiday. I wrote her cards

From Torquay and from Lorne. I sent the first

Before the phone call came to tell her death;

I've kept the rest.

                                    There was no funeral.

Possessions bagged for charity, her son

No want for things beyond the words she'd breathed

Of love for him; so late for him. We spoke

The third time in the decades we had shared

His mother. Does he grieve? Do I? For whom?

My visits with her were a chance for me

To talk about myself, my hopes, my fears

And hear her words of affirmation, backed

By thoughtful questions and remembered news.

She listened. She believed in me. She loved

As grandmas well can do, without regard

For faults and flaws, just seeing diamonds gleam

Where I saw only quartz, my stumbling words

Of poetry and prose heard carefully

And shared with friends. For her I read aloud

The poets she had cherished long and oft

Recited on demand, her stagecraft strong.

And yet she was an ardent advocate

Of my poor lines. How she would scold if now

She heard those words!

                                    So what remains of Phyl?

Nought but relationships she'd deftly formed,

And stories told, which we may choose to weave

As colour in the cloth of our own lives.

Recalling Christmases, the fam'ly thrilled

When Phyl was one of us, pale matriarch,

Or was she fairy godmother of old?

Bestowing gifts and blessings on her folk

Who valued trinkets, kindly words, bequeathed

As evidence of this grandmother's love.

Her presence veiled now, still she lingers, whole

In spite of fractured memories. I cringe;

The image fixed before me now is soiled

With pain, with my own helplessness and urge

To run from clutching hands and sickly smell.

And weeks before that, when her usual grip

On what was real began to falter, slide

Into the past, the present gone, I braced

Myself to bring her back. But past was kind;

Did I betray her when I chose with love?

Yet death by cancer was the thief which stole

From her the clarity of thought and speech,

Expended her élan. Remember, though,

Her sense of fun, her biting wit, the quips

That yet broke through the haze. On our last day

Together, only half in jest we talked

Of heaven's plan to throw a merry bash

To welcome her. We'd no idea how near

That day – one week from then until she left.

And do I grieve? For her sake I rejoice.

And for the memories I'm truly glad,

And for the richness extra fam'ly brought

To all my kin. Of life lived, what remains?

A hand in mine and many lives enhanced.

Until next week…
Claire Belberg

Devolution

                    Welcome!

dead eucalypt

With two winters of good rainfall recently and the resulting greenery, this dead eucalypt is a stark reminder that drought is ‘normal’ in the Australian climate cycle. The new owners of this property will have to pay quite a sum to have this removed before it falls onto their house, or their neighbour’s, in a storm. Unfortunately, that means the local rosellas will lose one of their favourite nesting spots, in a hole where the trunk curves. That’s the dilemma of a modern living, isn’t it? The tension between human safety and native habitat. The birds had better make the most of it while this tree is still theirs.

Instead of a story this week, I have posted a satire in the form of a short play. Let me know what you think of it!

Devolution: a salutary tale

Two monkeys on a raft in a river.

They approach a fork and follow the main flow to the right.

Monkey 1 (smaller): I don’t think we should be going this way. I’ve got a bad feeling about it.

Monkey 2: You and your feelings! We need to be logical about this. There is no known reason why we shouldn’t go this way.

The river banks get steeper.

Smaller monkey: I’m really not happy about this. I’m sure something’s not right about this place.

Bigger monkey: Pah! Intuition superstition. We’ve never been here before so how can we know anything about it?

The river runs faster between high cliffs, and boulders begin to appear in the water ahead of them.

Anxious monkey: I don’t know how, but it feels familiar, like a faint memory…

Bold monkey (trying to sound patient, but failing): Oh, I see – a memory, race consciousness, that sort of thing. Well, whatever is causing your feeling is in the past now. We need to look ahead and let bygones be bygones.

Monkey 1 (becoming agitated): No, no, no. We need to stop before it’s too late! (Tries to grab hold of a boulder they sweep past)

Monkey 2: Really, all this emotion is unnecessary. Look, you’re making the raft wobble! Calm down, and let’s just enjoy the ride. We’ll be fine, you’ll see.

Monkey 1 (getting wild with the impending sense of doom): You don’t understand! There’s danger ahead. We need to do something now or it will be too late!

The raft races through a narrow channel, barely fitting between the sheer walls.

Monkey 2 (restraining smaller monkey): For goodness’ sake, will you calm down? You’re making this unpleasant for both of us. It’s all in your head – just a matter of perspective. It will work out okay, I promise.

The channel suddenly releases the raft into a wide expanse of water and a magnificent view of lands beyond a shining lip of water.

Monkey 1 (looking around, puzzled): So you really think we’re okay? It’s just been a false anxiety? Oh, maybe you’re right.

Monkey 2 (soothing): Yes, yes, that’s right. Calm and rational wins out. There’s nothing to fear at all, see?

At which moment the raft slips smoothly over the edge and plunges into the pounding abyss hundreds of metres below, and our monkeys and their makeshift raft are never seen again.

Until next week… (the blog, not the monkeys)

Claire Belberg 

Busy + a new anthology

                         Welcome!
Relief! After a week of heat and unaccustomed humidity, we have a few mild days before the heat strikes again. Just the break I needed to plant out late tomatoes and herbs (some of which had been sitting on my kitchen window sill for too long). I'm not a diligent gardener, as much as I'd like the fruits of such diligence, but some parts of the garden enjoy my neglect - like this 'busy' plant, so named because it takes over my garden in the same way busyness hijacks my life. A case of the good being the enemy of the best, or the tyranny of the urgent over the important. We have many adages that recognise this problem, but it's a constant battle to find the balance between worthwhile effort and sheer frenzy. For once, my photo and my poem join forces...(sorry, the photo disappeared from the blog. Don't quite know how that happens - maybe the shock of integration?!)

Busy

In the busyness of modern life,

A world of action, techno-hype,

Something is lacking.

Emptiness drives us to strive.

Where is the meaning?

Is this why I'm alive?

Does the activity make its own worth?

If I do more, do I score more highly?

If I stop, will I cease?

Will it be as if I'd never existed?

I stop.

I discover Being.

I begin to sense I really am.

If I do nothing, nothing “useful,”

I start to know I'm worth something.

I find myself co-living, not competing,

Made to be “with,” not “ahead”.

Stillness calls me to live:

When I feel empty, I stop.

My days are full but not in “busy's” sense;

I take my fill in Being, still, content.

(For those with an interest in poetic technicalities, this is a chiastic structure such as used in Hebrew poetry in the Old Testament Bible.)

An announcement: the latest volume of short stories, poems, plays and songs by the students, staff and friends of Tabor Adelaide's creative writing department is now available. It includes a story for children by me, two original Christmas carols by my husband, and plenty of other fun and thoughtful pieces. Christmas Tales can be purchased from the college by phone (+61 8 8373 8777) for AUD$12 plus postage and handling. 

Until next week…
Claire Belberg

Brother Mine (Part 2)

                   Welcome!

November has done it again. We usually think of Adelaide’s hot weather being in January and February but I reckon you can count on one week of November giving us a foretaste of it. This is the week: 35+ degrees Celsius forecast for at least four days of this week. As long as the garden doesn’t suffer from it, I’m okay with that. I think the feijoa likes it. This is its first flush of flowers since we planted it a year ago. My tastebuds are already preparing themselves, but the flowers are my favourite feature of this small tropical South American tree.

Now for the conclusion of the story we began last week, a historical fiction of an undervalued son and a strange visitor.

Brother Mine (Part 2)

'Richard, my dear fellow! You're ready by the look of it. Let us depart immediately before—' and he peered towards the dining room with one eye and up the stairs with the other, a peculiarity no doubt made possible by his wall eye. Grabbing my sleeve as I stood firmly clenching my teeth to prevent my jaw dropping like an imbecile, Bryant linked arms with me and almost dragged me to the carriage awaiting us. The livery was unfamiliar; everything was as incomprehensible as my apparent imaginings the previous evening.

            For the first mile or so, Bryant said nothing but looked out of the window to one side and then the other, casting me an occasional smile or a wink as his gaze shifted.

             I sat looking sideways at him, trying to recall if I had ever heard of him. I had spent some time in London the previous year, but none of my acquaintances had intimated the existence of such a person. Surely I would have heard some rumour about a fellow of his odd appearance and outfit. City gossips have nothing better to talk about.

            After a time, when I was beginning to wonder if I had been rash in following this character without an explanation, he sighed loudly and took off his wig, scratched his near-bald scalp, and tossed the wig aside, where it slid off the leather seat and onto the floor.

            'I take it you received word last evening of our plans for your future? And that you are not unwilling?' He looked me in the eye most impertinently, or so my father would have judged, and then turned away as if he had seen the answer. I answered nevertheless, since I had no idea what he thought he had seen.

            'I – I was – uh, visited l-l-last night, it is t-t-true. Excuse my ret-my ret-reticence, but I had b-been wondering if I had s-simply drunk too much brandy. Even n-n-now, I confess, I am s-s-struggling to comprehend.'

            He nodded briefly as if that was a matter of course, and I relaxed a little. Whatever was happening to me, it appeared that my understanding was not essential, merely my acquiescence. What did I have to lose? I asked myself. The unlikely proposal of the previous night had seemed to offer more hope than I had experienced since my brother's demise on the Continent seven years earlier.

            'We will be at the port in a little over two hours, so I will begin your instruction immediately. You will cease to be known as Richard from this moment; you are Jack.' And you will address me as, in fact, I am – your mother's second cousin, Frederick Schwingenschloegl.' At this point he took off his outer garments, bundled them tightly and threw them, together with the wig, into the river we were at that moment crossing on a narrow bridge. He pulled out a box from under the seat and proceeded to dress all in black, a respectable German traveller.

            I had not imagined it. This improbable man was offering me the impossible and now I grasped it with fervour. If I could not have my brother, I would be my brother. One day, in the future planned for me by my mother's German relatives, I would return to England to claim the inheritance of the father who would not recognise his younger son. I only hoped my mother would live long enough to enjoy her victory.

Until next week…

Claire Belberg

Brother Mine (Part 1)

                         Welcome!

blue passionflower

The blue passionvine is in bloom – a fantastical flower, if ever there was one. It’s unfortunate that a flower with such promise doesn’t fulfil it with fruit. This was the rootstock of a Nellie Kelly grafted passionfruit. The graft didn’t survive, and now we have rampant blue passionvine trying to overtake the garden, latching onto the orange tree and consuming the water meant for it. But I’ve always enjoyed the peculiarities of weeds, so for the time being the wild vine remains, and I’m enjoying the crazy flowers.

The story of this week began as an exercise with my writing group, where we had to start with the first paragraph of George MacDonald’s Phantastes. In recognition that 1200 words is a lot to read in one burst on the internet, I have divided it into two parts. The second will be posted next week (poetry readers will have to wait an extra week before their next ‘fix’.)

Brother Mine

I awoke one morning with the usual perplexity of mind which accompanies the return of consciousness. As I lay and looked through the eastern window of my room, a faint streak of peach-colour, dividing a cloud that just rose above the low swell of the horizon, announced the approach of the sun. As my thoughts, which a deep and apparently dreamless sleep had dissolved, began again to assume crystalline forms, the strange events of the foregoing night presented themselves anew to my wondering consciousness.

            I hardly had time to decide whether I believed in them before the rest of the household awoke with all the clamour and bustle that entailed. Sighing, I rolled out of my bed, gave myself a quick wash, and dressed. Just in case the events I imagined of yesterday had, in fact, been real, I took up my cloak and retrieved a small pistol from the back of a bureau drawer. I tucked the latter into a flap inside my jacket which could have been made for the purpose. One never knew quite what had been intended by my deceased elder brother, Jack.

            I headed downstairs as a bell sounded. I knew therefore that my father was already in the dining room, and I checked my appearance in a long and ornately ugly mirror in the hall before proceeding to his inspection. My short black hair was neat, the russet and dark brown clothes well-made and becoming, according to my mother; there was only the uneven features of my shadowed face to displease, and those I had long ago resigned myself to. At least I could remember my brother when I saw my reflection, for we had been as seeds from the same pod. I tried to arrange my face in an affable pose, and approached the dining table.

            'Look like you're only fit for a walk in the woods,' Father grunted. 'Don't you have business today?' He gave me a piercing look under his lowered eyebrows, and I shrank from it as usual.

            'N-n-no, that is tom-m-morrow,' I said, taking a seat at the far end of the table. I prayed my sister would come earlier than was her wont, for she had the knack of distracting Father from his black moods. No matter what I said, my very presence seemed to increase that frame of mind.

            The maid dished up sausages, eggs and the remains of last night's pie while the silence of the room deepened and my father's eyebrows fell so low they almost interfered with his mandibular motion. My sister did not show, and my mother was, I assumed, nursing her constant ill-health in her own suite.

            It was as I bit into the pie that I realised, with a lurch of my stomach, that nothing had changed. Last night's events could not have occurred; they had merely been the expression of my growing desperation to know my father's approval. That moment of despair rendered the taste of pigeon pie thereafter unpalatable.

            I escaped the strained silence of the dining room with only a handful of shattering observations from my disillusioned pater. I stood in the hall for a moment, trying to decide on a course of action that would keep me out of trouble for the day. At that moment the butler announced an arrival.

            Assuming it was one of my father's business associates, I turned to go through the drawing room and thence out of the house to the stables, but Poulton ahem-ed behind me.

            'For you, Master Richard. A—' and here he looked again at the calling card in his gloved hand, 'Lord Frederick Bryant. He says you are expecting him.'

            The fellow who had announced himself so boldly looked quite irregular. I supposed that being a lord and used to having his way, he had chosen his outfit for his own peculiar tastes rather than fashion. I was not enamoured of fashion myself, but I would have found it unthinkable to wear old-fashioned purple hose with black knee-high buckled boots and a red and orange embroidered waistcoat under an open surcoat of shiny black fabric. This too had buckles, polished to gleam even as they tinkled at the jerk of his stride.

Look for Part 2 next week.
Until then…
Claire Belberg