A Poem A Day 11.

Breezy.

A country breeze is free and spacious,
dancing over mountains, lilting the forests 
and whispering across plains, carrying dust 
and eucalypt, a weather report,news of 
fires, or perhaps the promise of rain.

A city breeze is a friendly local, 
wafting neighbourly smells across
fences, and information down
alleyways. Sometimes with grimy
undertones, but always conversational.

A sea breeze is a visitor from afar, 
singing breathy tales of distant horizons
accompanying driftwood and sprouting
mangrove seeds; marooning bluebottles
with their bubble-sails glistening.


Kerry Miller


I'm not sure whether this needs to go anywhere further or not... perhaps there will be a fourth stanza.  Some day. 

A Poem A Day 10.

Afternoon Catechism

Despondent, in the afternoon

heat, this dull interlude a siesta

in an already stalled existence;

painless and pointless, drifting,

waiting for a reason to achieve

something, anything significant,

though what that means, I hardly

know.  So few of us make waves

that anyone notices, and those

who do are rarely satisfied. So

little of my one, small essence

will ever be known, and I wonder

at the thorny gift of conscious

life and how in my own meagre

self I hold the wonder of a thousand

night skies, and the thunder of the

sea in full fury when king tides are

running and the moon is full at

year’s end and how in me there is

the miracle of birth and the layered

patina of uncounted griefs, lived

in raw reality and in the resonant

suffering of others and how I hold

stories of hope for a future long

beyond my span of days, and

memories, mine and collected, of

times in and beyond the hard limit

of my own mortalilty, which I

cannot make longer but perhaps

will make larger, since it does

not take a giant to encompass

eternity and even gods are human

just as even humans are gods.

Kerry Miller

A Poem A Day 9

I am, I think it’s fair to say

too weary, at this close of day

to pay my promised poet's due

and craft a poem now, for you.

I think I’ll just start counting sheep.

Perhaps I’ll write one, in my sleep!

A Poem a Day 8

How do I sing the song

of an ordinary day

grown large,

fat with friendship,

unfolding, like a gift

of moments, caught

and held in gaze,

lingering like the smile

of a beloved and

nourishing

my heart?

A Poem A Day 7

Myuran

In response to 'Another Day in Paradise'.

Trafficker, son, heroin, stupid, brutal, brother, addict, worthless, friend, evil, immature, guilty, caught, convicted, sentenced, condemned, incarcerated, trapped, stopped, justice, harsh, punishment, deserved, tough, unbending, politics, intervention, controversy, international, support, diplomacy, pleading, advocacy, clemency, antipathy, polarising, desperate, reforming, supported, flawed, related, developing, sobered, hopeful, represented, repentant, pariah, undeserving, mentored, maturing, searching, learning, attempting, mistaken, stumbling, growing, painting, expressing, hoping, relating, striving, supporting, imperfect, improving, repaying, waiting, struggling, longing, determined, strong, wavering, continuing, expressing, stagnating, reviving, encouraged, ageing, disciplined, mentoring, protecting, creating, connecting, depressed, disheartened, believing, frightened sorrowful, wretched, distressed, trusting, anticipating, reviled, beloved, miserable, happy, motivated, despondent, purposeful, transformative, reflective, troubled, peaceful, discovering, elated, disturbed, inspired, worried, contented, loving, redemptive, anguished, resilient, vulnerable, powerful, resisting, surrendered, composed, grieving, tortured, sensitive, passionate, comforted, despairing, conflicted, vehement, courageous, agitated, foreboding, dreading, reconciling, confronting, foetal, forceful, terrified, aware, challenging, clamouring, crying, meditating, communicating, conscious, living, resounding,

Human.

Kerry Miller.

After attending the opening of  'Another Day in Paradise', the first major exhibition of the work of Myuran Sukumaran, painted whilst he was imprisoned in Bali's Kerobokan Prison, and during the final 72 hours of his life, spent on Nusa Kambangan Island, before his execution by firing squad, I felt I could not witness such a powerful expression of humanity without, in turn, bearing witness to what I had seen.  Sukumaran's paintings speak strongly of the pain, joy, agony, ecstasy, hope and despair of being human.  His story, which cannot be separated from his artistic legacy, is one of redemption, transformation, and human potential cut short.  His final 72 hours of work are the most powerful, and most human artistic message I believe I have ever seen.  This final work is beyond being political or even emotional.  It is a compelling testament of what it means, to be.

A Poem A Day 6.

A mess of feathers
on the road, magpie song stilled.
Her mate still lingers.

A Poem A Day 5.

Neochmia temporalis / Elegy

Red-browed Finch.  11-12 cm

Highly sociable, in close-knit flocks; forages on the ground, but occasionally perching on grass stems to reach seed heads.  When flushed, the flock departs with slightly undulating flight.

8g, on my kitchen scales. Length: 11cm.  From beak to tail, the length of my palm. though the Field Guide to Australian Birds gives no indication of the downy softness of your feathers, or the tiny miracle of your frame. Too fragile for trees reflected in sliding doors, your last flight ending with a thump on my verandah, your undulating flock whirring away without you.  Your tiny feet clawed as if to grasp a rescuing branch, or stem of grass.  Your lightness such, it should have bent and swayed, catching you with buoyant ease.

Red eyebrow line of the female tapers to a long, fine point at the nape, unlike the male’s broad, square-cut brow. 

She rests in my hand, delicate, unmarked except for her native splash of crimson set against soft grey and olive green.  I wonder her age.  Has she a mate? What tribal ties severed when she fell from flock, flight extinguished?

Voice:  extremely high, almost inaudible, a drawn out squeak, ‘tsee’ and ‘tseet’; in alarm a more abrupt ‘tchip’.

Does the flock ‘tchip’ with alarm, and swirl with fright, when trees are just a trick of light?  Will ‘tsee’and ‘tseet’ at nesting time be tinged with loss, unsettled, tonight?

Hab:  undergrowth of forests; favours grassy clearings, coastal scrubs and heaths, mangroves, canefields.  Status: sedentary or locally nomadic; common.


I wonder where they will roost, this evening, and if they will return.  She rests here, on my notepad; too small for something as big as death.  She must return to the large earth, be consumed by the living soil, in microbe and worm, to move, and in other forms, to fly.

Kerry Miller - and Field Guide to Australian Birds, by Michael Morecombe.