The muggy afternoon invites the evening in
For its release

Heavy, ripe clouds long to burst
And spill their pearly fruits
On the city.

Thirsty soil and twitching grass.
Eyes search the darkening sky,
Wondering when the showers will come.

Until the low rumble,
The spitting and spotting
Of fat drops on the pavements

Becomes a gushing monsoon
That washes the sweaty heat
Into the gutters

Leaving the smell of hot wet roads
And damp leaves dripping.

Pebble on my path, you trap my toe and make me question which way I am going.

Pebble, you set me free – my fingers curl around your coolness, which sips the warmth of the sun.
When I hold you, I am taken into a quiet place beyond myself.
In and around myself, an openness that is always there but hidden by the noise.

Pebble, take me to the seashore: the edge of the land, where the water licks the sand.
Your home, you are set there in stone but move in strong tides, rattling over your brothers and sisters.

Pebble, I keep you on my desk where you remind me of what it is to be quiet and alone, without questions or solutions.

I write because when I write blood runs on to the page and forms rivulets that merge into an ocean. A sea – a jumble of words with all their twists, turns, curves and corners.

Words that sit together comfortably like old grandmothers. Words that curl around each other, scaly like lizards’ tails. Words that talk, words that sing. Threads like guitar strings, each a unique note that resonates on the page.

I write because I need to, because my heart beats louder when I think about it.
I write because writing is my romance, the love affair I have been engaged in since childhood.

I write because it’s magic, because I weave a tapestry of words and images that weave their own stories.
I write because it is how I connect to my inner source, my creative consciousness, the essence of the universe, the hidden within, the core.

I write because I love the flow of the ink from the nib, from my fingers, from my arm, from my brain, from my heart.

I write because I love it… because… because…

I write because I am writing, I am spilling, I am bursting through the present moment and pushing into the next. The edge of this moment stretches like a piece of elastic that splits and the next moment is born – a painless labour.

I write because it’s a thread that has run through my life – one I always pick up again, each time with a renewed intention and inspiration.

I write because this is how I have recorded my life – through volumes of journal that I have kept since I was young. The books I have filled in the last 8 years chronicle the journey of my life as a seeker, a spiritual practitioner, a lover, a wife and a mother.

I write because I want to share my dreams and my inner world with my future self and with whoever wishes to tune into my radio.

Prologue:
As I walked up Gray’s Inn Road, the rain came down in thick streams. The dampness working its way through the inadequate jacket that I had borrowed from my Mum’s coat rack.

I heard a slap and looked down to find the box of overpriced, organic salad that I had bought at the train station had fallen through the bottom of the paper bag, its contents of grated beetroot and carrot spilling on the paving stones.

I was late. I was hungry. The baby strapped to my chest had raindrops running down his cheeks. And, I was on my way to have root canal surgery for the second time in a week.

———————

Heavy swing of doors
Shoes squeak on lino
Low buzz of voices

Papers rustle as he scribbles notes
With a fountain pen

My clothes slide on the vinyl
Chair reclines to horizontal

“Just a scratch”
Needle pierces my gum
Ice spreads through my jaw

“Have a rinse round”
I wash out the metallic anaesthetic
With powdery, pink swill of mouthwash
From a plastic cup

Rubber sheet fitted over my tooth
Gags me like a hostage
Smells strangely sweet
Like shopping mall cookie dough

The microscope looms over me
A large, staring, electronic eye
In the corner of my vision
Black and white x-ray films
Illuminated on a light box

The strip light overhead has fused
A large round clock marks
the slow
minutes
passing

Metal instruments glint
Lowered into my mouth
By latex-gloved hands

The ultrasonic drill squeals
Like a knife edge on stone
Files inserted and turned
With a squeaky
Rough
Twist

Chlorine smell of the injected liquid
“Paper points – Size forty”
In out, in out
Jaw aching
Drilling
Hydrochloride
“Paper points”
In out, in out
Again and again
Again and again

Until
Furrowed brow
Hushed words over radiographs
Shaking heads

“Dress the tooth”
Concrete paste smeared into the hole
Chair raised to vertical
Head prickling
Throbbing

“I’m afraid it has not been possible
To locate the canal.”

Swans glide, wings beat deep and wide – carving their migratory path through the south sky. Sparrows dive in the wind’s slipstream. Beaks pierce the clouds like the skin of a dream.
Soap bubble floats up high. Round window of rainbow light.

Tree branches finger the sun. At their feet, a thinker bends his mind in on itself until it finds the Oneness. His toes in the grass, clutching the dew. His eyes turn inwards and follow the ghost’s footsteps into the dark cleft of the tree trunk.

His heart beats with no surrender. His heart was once tender but his eyes are blank as a dartboard bullseye. A melody finds its way to his pursed lips and, without a kiss, he begins to whistle. Soft was the song, with notes sweet and long like drops of honey.

She sits, dipping into the quiet spaces that dwell between the thoughts – collage of sounds and pictures that clutter the cerebral walls.

The quiet spaces – cool refreshing pools formed by the rainwater that falls, sometimes a trickle, sometimes a torrent, on the earth.

Where the water falls, seeds planted lifetimes ago find nourishment and begin to sprout and grow. Eventually to flower – petals spreading like flakes of coloured light that catch the Sun.

Petals, like invisible velvet to the fingertips – disappearing between the skin – soft, yet almost imperceptible. Their colours gold and fuchsia, deep poppy red and cornflower blue.

Early morning sunlight enters the window panes. She opens the windows and smells the air – grassy, sweet, fragrant with flowers, alive with birdsong.

The sunlight warms her eyelids, burning away the sleep of night.

A stretch of sky.
My thoughts drop into shadow.
I can no longer beat my wings,
Standing at the edge of this cliff,
Far below, a sea,
Into which I am about to fall.

I feel the fear of the fall,
Grope around for a hold on the sky.
Can I stop myself dropping into the sea?
No, I am sucked under by shadow.
Losing my foothold on the cliff,
Alone and weak in the wings.

The ache in my wings
Makes the fall
inevitable. The cliff
cuts the sky,
casts a shadow
on the depths of the sea.

Am I already in the sea,
With the waves flapping my wings?
Here there is no fear of shadow:
I have nowhere to fall,
Enveloped by the sky,
But a memory of the cliff.

Hanging on to the cliff
edge; I have tasted the safety of the sea.
Squinting into the sky,
Found strength in my wings
to brave the fall
and slip from the grip of shadow.

I come to you with my shadow
in my hands, from the tip of the cliff.
Share my tale of the fall,
my release in the sea.
You take me in your wings
as we gaze at the sky.

The shadow always dances on the cliff
Tempting me to fall through the sky
But in the sea, I spread my wings.

Wanted to pop it out
on the page:
Painless,
Perfectly formed.
But it takes time
and patience
to slowly shape it
into something
rhythmic and whole.

Two minds,
two hearts,
two bodies.
A spark,
A beginning.

A tunnel of love:
Walls of nurture,
studded with jewels,
spiked with fears,
A ceiling of trust and knowing.
Enter a maiden
Emerge a mother
Body grows into shape of woman.

And you,
a question mark
curled around a beating heart;
A mystery,
a new start
Evolving in the deepest part
of my belly.

You lie, you turn
you kick, you swim.
Your limbs draw lines
inside my skin.

Awaiting the sweet taste
of your arrival.