poetry

Hands

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hands

My father’s hands were strong and silent
capable, restless, methodical, worn.
Missing the tip of a digit or two;
able to mend shoes, carve the weekend roast,
mow lawns, grow vegetables
give out hymn books, shake hands after church,
make piles of the collection-plate coins
lay carpet, fix the car, drive to music lessons
make a new key to wind up my toy train.

His hands could claim me if the surf were too wild;
were strong to carry this broken-legged child
put metho on mozzie bites, dab soap on my nose
clap hands for the babies, and cheer when they smiled.

In this noisy shouting world with strident voices cluttered
hear the quiet words of love my father’s hands have uttered.

© Julie Thorndyke

Recently in Ribbons and Gusts

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RIbbons

Sotto Voce

white on white
a snow-bound cottage
framed by bare trees
those elusive shadows hold
echoes of you and me

indigo
for the darker moments
when sunrise
is too far distant
for comfort

bold red to hold
an abstract canvas
in the eye—
the tricks we learn
to survive this life

a swirl
of ocean blue—
in the midst
of our turbulence,
the red flag of desire

colour and line
define our world—
we capture
one moment, and seek
to unlock eternity

an arc of blue
cuts this corner of canvas—
always the detail,
the sotto voce
that enthralls me

© Julie Thorndyke

12 July, 2015, Muse Gallery Cafe

First published in Ribbons 11(3) Fall 2105 p.53

Sadly, Muse Gallery and Cafe have closed their doors for the time being.Let’s hope that it won’t be a permanent decision. I enjoyed viewing the work of our local artists, and appreciated the impetus they provided for this tanka sequence.

A luminous painting in the gallery also prompted this tanka, that appeared in Gusts 22 Fall/Winter 2015 p.8:

gusts22_med_hr

pale leaves
dripping with light
the gentleness
of our first touch,
your fingers on my neck

© Julie Thorndyke

 

Sometimes

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tree

Sometimes
I feel that I understand nothing
sometimes
I hold the key to the universe
sometimes
I roar like a lion
sometimes
I run like a mouse
sometimes
the tide is way, way out
sometimes
the beach holds the full sea
sometimes
my faith is a tall tree
sometimes
an un-germinated seed
but always
You.

© Julie Thorndyke

first published in Studio : a journal of christians writing Number 103, 2006.

Fleur-de-lis

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100 yrs school mag

world poetry day

Fleur-de-lis

Lemon tree, bumble-bee, lavender, sage
a pair of brown hunting dogs led by a page;
sunshine and winter fields covered in snow
these are the pictures my needle will show.

Turquoise and amethyst, bright emerald green
quilting a carriage cloth fit for a queen.

Filigree, fleur-de-lis, deep royal blue
doves in the dove-cote and fire in the flue
powdered wig, dance a jig, minstrels will bow
out in her play-farm the queen milks a cow.

Turquoise and amethyst, bright emerald green
quilting a carriage cloth fit for a queen.

Peacocks, white stallions, shy deer at the stream
pale silk like cobwebs embroiders my dream.
Pricking my finger in haste as I lean
close to the rush-light and sew the fine seam

red blood drops freely across my fine art
even my needle has changed to a dart.
Out in the square, see the tri-colour wave
these steady stitches shall keep my heart brave.

Turquoise and amethyst, bright emerald green
stitching a carriage cloth fit for a queen.

Wheels over cobblestones, hear the crowd cheer
blades, fine as diamonds, her neck will soon wear
peer through the window, the black-hoods are seen
raising a guillotine fit for a queen.

© Julie Thorndyke

school mag covers

I was fortunate to have this poem published in The School Magazine, Touchdown, October 2012. It was a great thrill to be published in a magazine I had read as a child, and in which so many wonderful writers have been represented.

The first draft of the Fleur-de-lis was written all in a rush one Easter. My family and I were at the beach for the weekend. It was a happy family time, but during all the walking, swimming and eating, there was a rhythm and a single line of poetry going around in my head: “quilting a carriage cloth fit for a queen”. This line became a repetitive element holding the poem together. The words evolved, fused with images of bright jewel colours and rich tapestry work. In a sort of poetic trance, I found a quiet moment and managed to scribble the lines down.

I was studying in the Master of Creative Writing program at The University of Sydney that year. I used this poem as part of my poetry portfolio, and read it at the end of year soirée. The rhythm and rhyme make it a good piece to present to an audience.

I hope the poem Fleur-de-lis will stir your senses and conjure up vivid images in your imagination.

Happy World Poetry Day! And congratulations The School Magazine on one hundred wonderful years.

 

100 yrs school mag

Milking Time

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On a ship again, this time
the rocking makes the red gunshot
crevices in my torso quake and sting
with every pitch and dive. Seabirds
hover, like the maggies on the farm—
is it milking time?

The salt-harsh taste of bully beef,
the tepid tea, the damper bread—
in my mind’s eye, I see the flush
of mother’s cheek, as she pours out broth
and settles the little ones to their tea.
Is it past milking time?

Dusk, and in the greying sky
I hear an echo of the galah’s cry.
The cows will be coming up the hill
to stand in the yard, calm and still
with udders full and eyes soft brown—
They know it’s milking time.

Behind closed lids, I long to see the rush
of creamy white fall to the pail. But all
that comes is crimson rain that falls
and pools and comes again. I never thought
that Daisy’s teat would hold a memory so sweet
and make me long for milking time.

Young Bill, my brother still in school,
has risen early, retired late. He fights
his battle in the muddy paddocks of home.
Double milking, morning and night,
until I am home to do my share.
It is long past milking time.

© Julie Thorndyke

Sea Chant

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IMG_0210

When all the world has cancer
black dog has gnawed the bone
last bell has rung, fat lady’s sung
and everyone’s gone home

when night comes creeping deeper
as a leper all alone:
then listen dear, come dancing where
the sea chant waltzes on.

The greening sea, the keening sea,
the wheezing, dreaming, beaming sea
will lull us all along.

© Julie Thorndyke

Sleepless Sonnet

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sleep

Some run their restlessness into the ground
along a stretch of tarmac or a hill;
on surfboards, will allow the waves to pound
their strength and anxious thoughts at last to nil.
A prayer will work for some, and I have tried;
or stitches slipped along a needle sure
a rosary their worried hands to guide
who gather bands of wool for homeless poor.
My running shoes, these words upon the page;
relentless metre is my churning sea.
I save the knitting for my lonesome age
for poverty, alas, will always be.
I stretch my lines to find a small escape
and give our common enemy his shape.

© Julie Thorndyke

Another sonnet from the archives!

First published Ilumina : poetry unlimited journal 2007 p.186

Dogwoods

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dogwoods

I picked some self-sown violets
from my driveway edge this morning
they were wet with rain

entwined with the stems
of wild sarsaparilla—
unopened buds purple at the tips

each year this vine re-grows
despite the pruning and digging
of heavy handed men

each spring
I recall a viewing of Dogwoods
the agent’s smile fading

as our faces dimmed
with the sad aura
of the musty brick villa

I stood in the doorway…
so few rooms—were they
as cold and stale then as now?

tessellated tiles on the verandah,
cracked and broken from years of riding
this travelling clay soil

wooden-framed screen doors
closed against insects
the faint echo of a wheeze

in the beige, fifties kitchen
where night by night the words of Tree of Man
struggled for air

twenty years before my teacher
tried to interpret the great grey ordinariness
in a hot concrete classroom

looking for plot
in the bushfire, the flood, the fortitude
of the Australian everyman

when all the time the action
was in the blade of grass, the milk bucket, the fly
and a thousand unseen stars

twinkling beneath a heaving ribcage
answering the flicker of their celestial counterparts
in the wheeling, uncommunicative sky

© Julie Thorndyke

Verdant

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verdant

She looked down at her hands,
which were itching as if swollen with fluid,
and calmly saw

that there were thick, green, finger-sized caterpillars
with pointy, raised, pale-yellow dots
protruding from their backs,

emerging from her skin,
rising like veins transposed into a different
key of flesh—

like drops of sweat
they formed,
rose and dropped away
from her wrists,
her hands and forearms,
only to be followed
by another,
and another,

until her whole arm
seemed to be nothing but

a fat squirming caterpillar and the room
in which she and the poet conversed
nothing more than a greenhouse

surging with foliage
and dripping
with the moisture
of primitive life.

Julie Thorndyke