Writing

1
get stardust in my eyes
during worship
I’m cruising 
on a winsome sea
no land or others
just a breezy forever 
the wind’s got
the boat’s white sail 
full throttle
Jesus is near
With words of cool spirit fire
says
‘Look only to me
not left or right
keep your eyes on me 
alone’
2
We’re heading to a sunset
shooting 
cosmic light 
ten thousand streams of happiness
not far from the swing 
of the foam

one dawn or two later 
songs by the ‘electric light orchestra’
tune in 
I rise and play
‘strange magic’ 
‘telephone line’
and ‘twilight’ 
on you-tube
several times

the words
of the songs
calling 
to a space
between earth and heaven
like the place between the
boat and home
3
in spring
my sister phones
‘come on a cruise to Japan
my shout 
we’ll board the diamond princess 
at Taipei‘

soon our soft-as-cloud beds 
swing light as coracles
swept up in the swish 
of the waves

the dance of the steward
seems almost anointed
beds smoothed
twice a day 
clothes lightly folded 
on pillows
his touch
like a thousand silent breezes
surprisingly ok

I’m thinking about love of course
and how it makes you feel
when nothing is required
but to receive 
and live a little

we check our tiaras 
at our choice of cruise eatery
consider delicious thoughts
of crepes and creamery
a menu without prices
a magical ingredient

book a massage 
or a rest 
on a hot stone bed
take a tour round a port
climb watch towers
and look out

river sampans drifting far below 
say Japan Japan

Japan in November 
shows off its 
chrysanthemums
and children
in blossom-soaked kimonos
it’s Shichi Go San
loving parents
are praying for long life 
and happiness
we take photos

in dappled 
shrine courtyards
priests rustle silently in sunshine
and shadow
4
one evening 
rugged-up on deck
juggling pizza and icy wine
the kaleidoscope that shoots 
cosmic light 
is back
we’re at Osaka 
and hard portside
its famous ferris wheel 
twice ship height
is going off
big-time

glory plays and winks
while we drink 
and eat
and chat

catch the sound of one wheel clapping
on cue
ELO
strikes up 
on the deck’s big screen
‘Hello, can you hear me
have you been alright?’
coming down 
the telephone line

‘Are you still the same? 
don't you realize the things we did
we did were all for real

not a dream?
I just can't believe
they've all faded out’ 

God has my full attention
as Robin 
books us
tomorrow’s afternoon 
of leisure
I think of times past
God and I working together
recall a thousand happy glances
5
at ‘the sanctuary’ 
a private attendant
brings us soft wool blankets
to soothe our loads of woe – ha 
our noses sniff 
a salty sky
a place of sighs let out

three courses 
of afternoon tea
biscuits 
of the heavenly sort 
can’t buy in ordinary shops 
I think
as I try one out

then a trolley 
wheeling sandwiches 
and angel cakes galore
each one pretty 
never tasted before
6
as we cruise 
to our final port
a thousand waves bow sorrowfully
I reach a chapter in my book
my heart jumps
He is speaking 
in tsunami sentences
‘I want to answer 
your prayers
and I will 
but first soak you 
in my love’ 

my riven heart
hears something along this line 
‘I have ships
sailing in living water
powered for high seas
you are both queens 
with domains of love
like these’

weeks later
the sky is
dusted in white
chrysanthemum pompoms
ten thousand graces sallying
white sails billowing

I listen again and write
‘love and healing
for the nations
sound the trumpets
blow the horns
prepare the way of the Lord’.

end

©Tess Ashton
Image Shutterstock

Over the river
the ‘red’ horse
is munching under the fleur de lis tree
its scarlet coat deepening ever slightly
into the most daring of pinks
Makes this creature the prettiest
thing anyone could hope to
see on a hill by a river
and the people going by on the trains might look up and see
it and love it and exclaim in their hearts
look there’s a horse with a beautiful red cover
it looks fit for a queen.

A hawthorn says son Ed
is a magical tree
and a dark brown horse draped in scarlet
its elegance swirling
capturing the branches
of the brittle hawthorn
and velvet of creature
take me back to real time with a spiritual director
and the loose end tree.

She helped me draw my
loose ends as a tree
saw what was right in front
of me
first the question:
where are you at?
a crossroads I think
in work and life
ok right, draw that, came back.

Saw a roundabout
wide roads spark off
north south east and west
but was drawn to the centre
a tree appeared
drew my loose ends
as branches
spiralling off a solid trunk
no leaves much yet.

So where are you in the tree?
high up busy
doing what, she said?
don’t know, I murmured
but as I watched
old leaves lit up
like heavenly wonders
I’d brushed them
with a greening wand
and I was a fairy princess.

Hallelujah, two months later
I’m part of an incredible moment
in a suburb with its name
on a tall tree-like sculpture.

I’d had to find a new place
for some free literacy classes
found a
church without walls
welcoming the homeless
and anyone smudged
with poor health, drugs, or prison
people whose sheen
might welcome wonder dust.

So I’m up and running
still feeling my way
throwing in love
aim to brighten their senses
stoke up each one’s callings
holy spirit long swirling
the air well prepared
for any fresh movement
Here the saints love God
give space to the Spirit
here greening is wanted
high in loose end branches.

ends

©Tess Ashton
Image Holy Hawthorn, Glastonbury, Flickr

bird on a wire

let me hear your song

bird on a wire

you can do no wrong

for your singing is

as love to me

your tender trill

thrills my ear and soul

bird on a wire

tell me where your voice

comes from

your plumes so soft

that write upon my heart

and i shall leap upon

the horse dressed in red

up on the goldy-green hill

beyond the people

waiting for the train

so still

and i will try to catch your maker

before the sun comes up

while he is cool and resting

bird on a wire should i find him

i will ask why do the birds

sing so prettily to us

and why do they

talk of love

tell me lover

i shall say

what it is love bears

to play for us that love-torn

sonnet

i’ll tell him i have heard your trill

that the flowers have appeared

in our land

that the winter has gone

and the rains are over

already i know the answer

this is the season

of the turtledove

we are to arise

and come away

©Tess Ashton

Image Two turtle doves, Felipe Lopez, www.images.unsplash.com

In the nave
two chairs with arms
look at each other

on the
trail of window sills
queen anne’s lace
stencils
sun and shadow

above the altar
a collage of local
hills and houses
church and local theatre
train at the station

the place I get off
is where love
and grief collide
just a feeling
inside

when the Shepherd
comes looking
for me
when His heart
calls
i’ll run
the road
of paradise
won’t look
behind
 

ends

©Tess Ashton
Image Marc Chagall (1887 – 1985)  Song of Songs IV

for Olivia in Calgary

We tumble out the basement door
eyes dance
warm and low from the downstairs porch
to the distance

the snow’s laid out on the pond
on the banks and on the grasses
on the circle of still houses
and tender birches

the sky is vast and blue
ice drifting through

you draw pink and orange spring flowers
kneeling on the concrete slab
I experiment with charcoal
sit at the cold glass table

efforts with banks and far houses 
collapse in the brilliance of the light
on the snowy paper

the wire fence
comes out largest
suffocating the pale grasses
and lonely bird-shelter
in the branches

leave you all for a tall retreat house
in the Mission District
Sisters flow in the Spirit
by the Elbow River

when you and mum visit there’s a miracle
a snowshoe hare, cat and blackbird
sit in a circle
near the Peace sculpture

I’d found a book on my bed
St Francis
waiting to be read

held me tight in the days and nights
‘the things that happen in this old house’
Sister said

yesterday white chrysanthemums
explosions on a local flower trolley
His love like light of snow falling

at church a young woman
has painted the Lord 
walking hand in hand with a girl
the path is cool under high trees
leaves on fire

today your crisp white hapkido uniform
has a belt of blazing orange
you a fighter of the light

For He will give His angels charge concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. They will bear you up in their hands, that you do not strike your foot against a stone. (Psalm 91: 11-12)

©Tess Ashton

Goodbye
to quiet
moments
before and after
visits to a
bunch of
attractions
off the
north saskatchewan
river

light shining through

The zoo
has a kea
in its bird collection
wings and eyes
dead empty
we’ve seen you dance
pinching cakes
at Arthurs Pass
we tell it
through
weeping
bars
gently

I’m at my
breaking point
my breaking point

Goodbye
to Remedy Café
we loved your
cakes
and
local organics
your caffeine fixes
‘n blitzed up elixirs
chai lattes
stewed
for three
days and
nights

fill up my heart
or tear it apart

Goodbye to
our daughter
her Edmonton
man’s
back-yard
silent
‘til eleven

been waiting for
your company

the Metis Indian
neighbours’
invitation
to “a fire”
last Thursday
still warming
the air this
Labour Monday
and the squirrels
are quiet

you take my heart
into everything
you do

In the
dark belly of our
basement quarters
renovated
through a
sub-zero winter
we’ve prayed
in whispers
summer bush
fires

let it rain
rain rain

the stumble and gurgle
of the gas
air conditioning
a treat
to the beat of
what’s deep
and active

I’m with you my love

From bed
sent our smoke signals
three stories out
found a sky
to rest on
my toothache
settled

knock knock
knockin’
on heaven’s door

God said
‘I have
Everything sorted’
felt the download
like an upload
God’s great sense
of fun-load

I said
you put my heart
on overload

Am sure He said

I feel wonderful
tonight

Drove south
found a field
with prairie fever
small otter-e heads
popping
up all over
amazing
tunnel
architecture

getting too dark
to see

From the car
the plains
go nowhere
much
between grey pylons
under pounce
of crash and boom
clouds
lately bush fire yellow
or a red sun

you don’t realise
how much
I love
You

Feels like
we’re drifters
our voices
lost in prairie
time and distance
further than
imagination
goes

I must be strong
and carry
on

Thanks
Mr Clapton
we’re singing
Alberta Alberta

in all your
wandering
places
in all your
wondering
tones

©Tess Ashton
Image  Eric Clapton, Leonid Afrema with kind permission

try and describe the softest thing
a tree’s sheen of green
in spring
a cloud drifting - only blue behind –
the breath of a new baby
in a mother’s heart
words very
very hard to find

i think of the poet - Sam -
who might as well have said
babies trees clouds
when he was talking about
poems
said poems aren’t like anything else
‘just as Christ wasn’t like
Moses or John or anyone
a poem is itself
it’s all in there
not anywhere else’

another poet – Gerard -
said the word
that aches most
from the softest things
like babies
trees and clouds
is love

Zoe Bonnie is a poem
sailing in a cloud
has to be top of the tree
for Natalie
and all who love her
whether
on earth
or
in heaven

©Tess Ashton

written for Natalie and Zoe Bonnie, named after Granma Bonnie

Image  Zoe Bonnie by kind permission of her family

sunless forests
cut their losses
that’s them
flouncing in pearl-soft
cotton

lonely fields
take a chance
race off to the arms
of clear blue heavens

parched deserts
switch the light
cool and sparkle in
silhouette night

coral losing ground
rides the wave
of rainbow life

sky therapy
appeals to
all earth’s dreamers

I shoot
the breeze
with let go trees
sip rainbow hues
laced with
starry gold

join fields
running blue
gentle beasts
flying through

©Tess Ashton

Image: www.flickr.com

My loving sister who lives

in Philadelphia
first city of America
            city of a thousand trees and
slim pretty streets
where window boxes
spill with flowers and 4^th of July flags
and people gather on pavement chairs
tipped out tight doorways
over high front stairs
terrace-house knees negotiating
close as the tree limbs
colonnading
speak brotherly love
drink sisterly wines
on hot Friday nights

             My sister I was saying
has the Uber app
on her phone
we used it twice when we visited
right now I’m started…
she Uber’d
to get us round the corner
me, husband Lloyd and grandson Caspar
from Parkway Apartments
art deco with a hint of gothic flair
in Logan Square
to terrace house digs
in sweet Meredith
heart of the arts quarter
where Rocky at the
steps of the Philadelphia
Museum of Art
is hot property
the city’s latest addition
to its statue collection

             as I was saying
enlivened by our
exciting reunion with
our daughter Alex
and granddaughter Olivia
down from Canada
on that first evening at my sister’s
we and Caspar wafted one with the lift
that once carried
education board people
out to the marble edge of Winter St
and elegant
Pennsylvania
Avenue
where classical trees
loftily mind
the people below who
stop by
Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’
and those mesmerised
by the art at the Barnes Foundation
who come out bearing
Cezanne apple and pear
candle fruit mementos
that make fools
of customs officers at airports  – ha!
and bring postcards of Matisse
and Picasso riches home
for mantel pieces

              High classical trees that cool
people who visit
the science museum
of Benjamin Franklin
in the summer season
and who loll on the grass
with homeless people
like lionesses
while grand children
play on the swans and
the giant First Nation people
at Logan Circle

              but re my sister and Uber
our light toes had barely
reached the pavement
our hearts one
with the hot American night
when our Uber appeared
a black Chevy sculpture
a mere click of the fingers
from there to here
Denzel Washington quipped hubby later
was the driver
tall as a Pennsylvania night
and lustrous as a god
we were fated to be in possession of
for a moment
gave reason
to later muse
on the panoply of
guiding trees
the dark bronze sculpture
in Rodin’s Gallery garden
we would pass several times
on our walk to Wholefoods
organic supermarket
where they employ disabled people
and yellow shopping bags have LOVE
in big letters
a take on
the famous Love sculpture in the Love Park
on the JFK Boulevard
by the fountain where the kids
all rush and play
in the heat of July holidays

              It was ‘The Thinker’
got me humming
through the week
that came
the plaque explained
on close inspection
is the top small figure
created for
a sculpture
of Dante’s
‘The Gates Of Hell’
then the artist
enlarged his expression
to personify all inspiration
behind creative thought
an answer to my old question
about what’s behind all things poetic
bizarre this driver
for a moment
personified the revelation
that love is in motion
here in Philadelphia

             In the back of his Chevvy
our stuff and my family
tumbled about the leather excitedly
from the front
I marveled the way
of our limo-trained driver
the pay-later scheme
completed the golden mile
next day
we returned from being out
to find Caspar’s
red running shoes
glowing on the doorstep
like Cinder’s slippers
dropped in the getaway
returned by Uber
a surprising
thing for a taxi driver

              But Uber is like no other
fits well in the city of brothers
where Penn the Father
was known to interpret
St Paul’s words of freedom
‘Love is above all;
and when it prevails in us all,
we shall all be lovely,
and in love with God and one with another’
hail to Philadelphia’s far walking father
and my sister, daughter, grand daughter
husband, and grandson
and the Uber driver and trees and art
in Pennsylvania

©Tess Ashton

Image Philadelphia Love Statue  www.philly.com

Side note:
America’s first city named by
its far-seeing owner
William Penn who dreamed it all
devotee of St Paul
America’s first Quaker
set the hopeful standard
for extravagant love
his city plan and libertarian principles
inspired
Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin
the American constitution
invited British and European persecuted
Hugenots, Mennonites
Amish, Catholics, Lutherans and Jews
in time art lovers with Penn’s Oxford
training
people with money
got persuaded
made bronze statues of mothers and fathers
heros and heroines
planted them like muses on
the ridiculously clever
town planner’s
broad plazas

Jives

I wake to your jiving
trees
you’re wired
hot as rock guitars
rollicking with the fences
to the top bush line

and hills
you play a mean base
your grasses ripple
lit gold
young flames shooting
electric rain

and above
the clouds raked into
icing swirls

this feast of joy
is working
hills and clouds and trees
like me
are celebrating

Dufy’s holiday dazzle

you’re a
minstrel of joy
Raoul
when I read that description
I knew
what I knew
was true
your Eiffel towers
your yachts
and hotels
erupting in a mass of
couldn’t care less
clouds
have work to do
point to
the dazzle of holidays
and
entrenched happiness

Van Gogh go go

it’s a Van Gogh go go
breaking the heart
of everything apart
hill and tree and clouds
are rocking
while the wind
of a Dufy summer
keeps everything
breezy and
happily together

©Tess Ashton
Image Two dancers 1938, Henri Matisse

Anyone want to do something different?
Instead of job hunt
Read a poem?
And reflect on it?

Heads nod
Eyes wide
What’s she on about?
Go to the tried and true
Google sam hunt
Winter solstice song comes up
Print off
Hand out a copy to
Each one willing
To be captive to
A surprise
A word so like sunrise

To begin I attempt
To explain
The nature of words
By asking them
What do they think
Words are?
No one says weapons
That’s a good start

I help by saying
Words are potent
Units of memory
That
Hold different
Images and meaning
For each of us

For example
If I say the colour red
What do we each see?
Round the room
It’s a flag
Sunrise
A highlighter pen
Just red

The exercise is to
Listen to the reading
A couple of times
And underline the words and
Phrases that
Stand out or speak a little more loudly
Than the others

…‘But it is 
the year's shortest day
when anything can happen,
miracles 'not a problem'.

The sun five minutes with us
came and left with a kiss.
We believe in miracles. That, love,
is all we have.’

The work of poetry
Is to find the message of hope in the poem
I say brightly

So everybody
Take the word that’s calling you
Now write about it
What has it got to say
To you today?

It was the words
Winter solstice
That must have caught Sam’s heart
When he sat to write
And the ones that
Caught mine
For the 50^th time?

‘miracles 'not a problem'.

end

©Tess Ashton
Image Winter Solstice Wendy L. Wilkerson

The pentecostal lady apostle
from Brisbane
heard recently
at a women’s conference
had a dream
Aunty came to visit
after a bit
announced
was leaving for home
back over a perilously rising
river

You can’t go now aunty
you’ll drown…
but Aunt Hope
was determined
and quickly made off
toward the gushing stream

The apostle tried her best to stop
the worst from happening
but fast as a firebrand
the old lady
threw herself
Into the swirling foam

come back Aunt Hope
come back
come back Hope
Hope
come back
Hoooope
cooome baaaack

but now Aunt Hope
was being washed away
like limp tinder
until her plucky foot struck a sandbank
and held her fast

then the apostle
plunged forth
and believing with all her heart
reached out and
grabbed Aunt Hope’s hand
she pulled and pulled
and pulled until
the two lay gasping
on the grass

Oh said Aunt Hope
I’m going to come
and live with you
sleep with you
in your double bed
in your motel home
never leave you
Ok thought the apostle
I’ll cope

It was a dream remember

Pushing her luck Aunt Hope said
but I’ll have to bring
my friend with me
and the apostle thought
that’ll be a squeeze

but ok
the friend can have
the little annexe
off the main bedroom
there’s a bed
pretty messy
lots of junk on it

so the friend arrived
and had a look and said
oh no
I’m not sleeping there
I’m sleeping in the double bed
with you and Hope
where you and Hope are
I’ve gotta be
said Aunt Faith

And that’s the story of how
the pentecostal apostle
from Brisbane
got hope back
and once she got hope back then
faith moved back too

soon it was all

moving mountains
from here
to there
faith stuff
true evidence
of hope’s return

©Tess Ashton
Image  www.pinterest.com

I got my hair cut
On Saturday
felt I had a winner
as I peered,
younger,
in the salon mirror

Strange how this hairdresser
put me
on another level
my husband kept looking at me
appreciatively later

Wow 15 years
smashed
said a workmate
on Monday

My spiritual director
found me lighter
on Tuesday

It’s my positivity theology
I explained
I cut off the dead wood:
my hair’s
a symbol of that

I’m experimenting
with happiness
joy
and optimism
am on the lookout
for coins in the mouths
of fishes

like the feel
of the breeze
round my neck as I worship
it’s a wind blowing
and kind of
delicious

Now the
angels all praising
and the power
of the Spirit
are free to attend
to all
my good wishes

it’s Pentecost time
I’m playing
with fire
standing right
in the way
of all heaven’s
chances

To start with some
negative ghosts
hanging round
kicked up –
shoved off
once they knew
I meant business

Once I’d staked out my ground

©Tess Ashton
Image: Evening Breeze, Henri-Edmond Cross 1894
 

Three stanzas for Christchurch  

(taken from two larger poems written towards the end of 2009
and before the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011)

Christchurch Girls’ High School girls by the Avon in 1968

we danced
through hagley park
from tennis court to school
girls falling

like amazonians
to tiny avon’s charms
threw jungle calls round weeping trees
swung ropes that rang the bells

the dream of swan and stream
had us in its spell
our phys-ed teacher lingered
let the ballet play

deep limey banks
stalled the call
to wade the sparkling road
chucked the ball mid-stream instead

skimmed toward glimmers
of light ahead
recollection, refraction
threw it back 40 years on

close by, afternoon-empty
classrooms breathed
greek guardians hovered
between school and pond

layers of living words
whirling adrift of books
girls limbering-up
licks of river green that summer

red and orange flames late autumn

The fire - Christchurch Cathedral

When I saw the strange flares yesterday
in a cheap African wood-cut
black peasants swirling with sky-borne water pots
long-swung arms welcoming the desert

the rhythm of first nation people
already warring in my gut
a message going out in
a drum-beating time smouldering
the ridge-line
of me

I’d been thinking of
Christchurch Cathedral
a catacomb for flights
round mystery’s realms
where knees

tender and grimacing on stable straw     
soften the ancient mats
temper souls
then it seemed the flames licked up          

the starry cathedral sky
scattered sparks of desert sand
merged into an orange molten hand
fingers coloured the gleaming night

Spirit madly at work
painting the whole town red                      
living light thrown in swatches round                     
the grey billowy stone

then the out-breath
of the diamond show    
a freely wandering sky
no slim pointing spire                    

or light-daubed dark stone            
instead scorching searching eyes
reached from the plain of rubble
and gazed upon the wide-arcing blue

those who hadn’t knelt
the prism floors too

The River Avon

a city centre was held captive by a quiet dream
a river that rarely overflowed
so deep its parent banks
burnt a tedious hole in the heart of a peninsula

dreams so stagnant
caught without a tide
yet time on its side to break out on the left and the right
for a fountain to break the well’s deep dark

to shock the stream
move it to the wide windy ocean
the resonant fire banked up in me
could be this fountain ready to burst

to scourge the plains
the rising spread of daffodils
the centuries’ old signal along the banks
fragrant trumpets calling the tune

and after the blaze the azure sky will turn
the green shadows of the stream
into a reflection
of blue  of blue   of blue

in christchurch where the river glows
and sparkles tolling like child bells
between high parent banks
like a well forgotten

then losing its place
its moorings
runs away carving its own sweet path
the worry of a songbird

created in its wake
toward its true home
the boatsheds  the tearooms  the botanic gardens
the coalescent riverside offices and pearlescent stately city homes

green backyards that run to the edge of near drowning
my sister raked safely in to port
the family lawn
witnessed from a low clerestory window
through which children peep

when they sink beneath the tide
to flow within the deep.

ends

©Tess Ashton

Image Window, Annette Woodford www.annettewoodford.wordpress.com

i
A church and a bell

I’ve seen a tree on a hill
(with a church and a bell)
out my window
for 17 years now
alone without leaves
I now realize
must be dead
from this side of the river
who knows
yet says
‘I stand for all
things set apart
by those with an eye
for things placed
on a hill
or a table
for contemplation’
and I realize
it’s a dead tree talking
warming the living
saying love
is complete
in all things
given

ii
Hunger

when i look at the
tree on the hill
with the church and the bell
and the river in front
and the bush
on the edge
of cloud-touched tracks
the slow-moving rhythm
of the sky above
a poem no less
with a train
running through

but what is a poem
but truth coming forth
like Heidegger’s
butterfly
or a moment
of leaving from
a railway station

the crying most often
i come to the
hill sounds the call
for children
hungry and dying
how best to help
where are
they exactly?

a feeling below
of small hollow boats
on long empty rivers
forgotten then
sailing then lifting
on rainbows
children and babies
no fanfare
or tombstones

iii
Yang Yang and the view from the back

Above the tree on the hill there’s a Catholic
church with woods backed up facing
us  Off the flat ‘burb road from
the cul de sac entry
there’s a school
attached
too I
haven’t

seen lately
What the kids don’t
know there’s a hill stretching
downwards to a pink-blue river sky in its
mirror  On the back of the hill the sun comes
early shifting things in the dark with
light across pasture  Think often
of ‘yi yi: a one and a two

a movie that speaks
of forgotten
views  A boy
with his camera
clicks heads from the
back  says we all need help
with the tracks we’re immune to 
On Sunday went swimming in singing and

sermon and movie and river and light on hill
gliding  caught the rear view from
Colossians too  the wind of
the Spirit showed some-
thing odd though
a cloud of my
making
jiggled a warning

Shamed  to name sins
that cut into focus   Today
stroked the back of a neck of a loved
one felt the scar where hearing was taken
forever  Clever Yang Yang to spot a least thought about angle  

iv
The days and nights of Manapau St

blue
pink blue
blue orange
orange black
black black

sets the red station light
moon of the train
the bridge and town
alight in the distance
clack clack

as the train goes by
with the river
and clouds
who’d move?
relax relax

you might touch God
it’s paradise
here
in the cosy ‘burb
most times most times

and the hills over there
and the river
in front
and lights and city
in tiny perspective
this place this place

here clouds
and people
stride together
the old troll bridge
to catch the train
to town to town

past our verandah
meander the station
the edge of the
platform
the way of the journey
so near so near

Meadowbank kids
perch in formation
itching til airborne
bedrooms like hurricanes
ducks going somewhere
lift off lift off

by tides and timetables
hearts spin back
to days and nights
of pink and blue
and orange and black
think back think back

v
Fool on the hill

outa that scene
for good
rear view
mirror
tells a story
giant sun
proclaiming
glory
not disaster
on the hill

home alone
rays bear down
deepest
heaven
four years
rot
dug out
in twenty
minutes

nervy dream
old scene
naked
In the elevator
heading for
the upper
floor
be still
hints
St Francis

next day
wander to
garden centre
a rose
my name
chosen for
spring promotion
heart felt
description
swirl of love
birthday gift
from heavenly
Father

©Tess Ashton

Image  The Slain Tree  Eric Lee-Johnson c. 1945, Auckland, New Zealand