Dandelion Time
Petrels fly in fearless rhythm
overhead,
sounding each season’s theme with
slight variation,
a deep-set purpose, to and fro in
transit,
set in syncopation, fragile story of
survival
like the seas that beguile, until
it’s time to return.
For him it doesn’t really matter when
he turns back
nothing more, just a slow drift on
the cliff tops
like the sea-blown grasses shuffled,
all sense of ending muffled
on the tumult of waves that rush at
his side.
Down there on the shore,
corn-yellow legs,
knobble-kneed sticks,
three-pronged prints in
the grit
grasses undulating,
sea-grey, like the egret’s gullet
sensing what’s on the
air-swollen tide.
Offshore white
bombora waves
race at the
reckless edge
freeze-framed
below the dark mountain
in the line of disquieted
sight,
dark change
impending,
the wind wild at
this end of the island
whistles into his scrunched
eyes, resolve faltering,
but around the
next corner, a hide-and-seek
on his cheek
dappling shadows and light,
to the river and
the far-off song of ‘tirra lira’.
He sees its
stilled mirror
uncalmed by birds
as they shiver in the
sea-haven,
green-tips and
twigs on the riverbank,
tossed in a
sleeping tempest along the edge of the bed,
sinews of bark and
limbs trailing
adrift in white
linen folds, dawning clouds of down
smooth over
pillowed silence
puffed air settles
like ruffled homing birds,
as if on the wings of Shelley’s sea
words,
it breathes, soft
on his face, its dandelion time.
Jill Forster
Jill Forster holds a PhD in educational psychology, previously a consultant, university lecturer. Individual poems published in collations - chapbook (NSW Government Arts Council), magazines , online (for the National Library,Australia; Royal Botanic Gardens,Sydney); National Library of Congress, U.S.A..Pandemonia and Sea-Salt Soliloquy were published in Ariel’s Dream in 2020; Regarde was published in the journal Brushstrokes, WA Poets Inc, 2023 as a Ros Spencer competition winning poem.
— Published books include:
· Think about Creativity’(Hawker Brownlow), 'Think about Mentoring’(Hawker Brownlow)
· Two poetry books ‘Lullabies’(St Clair Press) and 'Honeyed Ramblings' http://www.originimprint.com/honeyed/about.html
· Memoir 'Mother of the Child’ originimprint.com/motherofthechild
— Completed manuscript of a mosaic novel, collected and integrated vignettes
— Currently writing short stories and collected poems.
— Collaboration with artists about moments of connection
— Collaboration as lyricist on a song for marginalised voices.
— Collaboration as lyricist for children’s musical