Hours and MarianDaysWebb
and Days Marian Webb
Hours
First published 2022 © Marian Webb 2022 Mynahs at dusk appeared in Antique Children Magazine February 2010 Thanks to Tara Strong and Neighbours Cafe Cover photograph and book design by Marian Webb marianwebb@mail.com
For all my friends with love
Marian Webb, author of Moon Haiku and Dreams, has appeared internationally in Antique Children Magazine, The Stolen Poem, and Edgar Allan Poet. In her home town Melbourne she has performed at spoken word events that include White Night 2016, Marty Monstar’s Dramatis Personae, Girls on Key at Open Studio, and Spoken Word Sunday at Neighbors Cafe.
Contents Diurnal rotations, 8 Currawong, 9 Noon, 10 Hand tree, 111 Daisies, 12 Half past three, 13 The rain hazed pane, 14 Mynahs at dusk, 15 Hare filled eye, 16 Wind, 17 Petals, 18
Diurnal rotations
At dawn a raw beginner spits syntactical trash. The birds whitter. Mid morning a lone possum creeps down a day lit elm. Claws cleave its vermicular bark. At noon the world stands still in the shortening shade. There is nothing to say. People are at lunch. Afternoon, dozy lyricism. Evening, feathers and fruit. I stutter and am inevitably overtalked. Night, the fruit bats chitter in the figs. Wings whoop black on black. The stars prance. Words without sound illuminate the wind.
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Wintering in the elm the currawong yodel grace notes over and over the same melody crying territory. One comes close, hopping along the chilly balustrade grasping the metal, curious, courageous, capricious, Headvoracious.tipped back, a top note pitched clears the cold sky. Again that pitch, again that clarity. I catch her eye. She flies off in grey plumes butcher beak hunting fresh meat.
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Currawong
Noon a cabbagelandsbutterflywingsas white as icing sugar on a spike of lavender to drink from tiny flutes blown with butterflies in mind as if at a wedding awiththousand guests. 10
Hand tree Among the imbrications of the palm two hands sprout: a span of blue blossoms drops left of fingers dripping berries red as blood. 11
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Daisies Spring, the daisy tree is a blossom bomb exploding pink, honey scented wheels. Someone has lopped off branches full of bloom and tossed them in the compost bin. I carry armfuls, four vases full indoors. Pink petals revive and white buds open in vase water. The scent of nectar permeates my room. Daisy honey housed in hidden hives.
Half past three Sun and shadow chase each other over the grassy oval. The bell rings. School children mob the gates. The afternoon is filled with corner shop traditions: ice cream signage, chocolate milk and squishy lollies.
A century lapses along Inkerman Street between fence palings, laundry laden Hills Hoists.
The children mass home to their front doors, like their parents and grandparents decades ago. I dream their dreams remembering silly commercials interrupting sillier cartoons. Post millennial jingles sting immemorial schoolyard rhymes.13
The rain-hazed pane Sunshine through the rain hazed pane shatters into rainbows. What of perfect form — an arc, a circle, a perfect Adiffraction?worldina window haloed to distraction? Light like love ensouls an old rose. Colours spill on the cold stone. The summer sun sets in a riot of rose. The rain hazed pane is blooming. 14
By the town hall in Chapel Street in the plane trees towards sunset a huge noise of birds crescendoes. I look up. Bare branches cross hatch a colourless sky and the shapes of birds, vague and globular, swim like bubbles in liquid celluloid. The trees, the lit sky, the tumultuous birds the size of apples but grey, with dark birds' heads that flutter and hop like turbulent leaves twittering and screaming hold me in twilight as the crowd sweeps south down Chapel Street beyond the twinkling signs.
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Mynahs at dusk
Hare-filled eye
Silhouettes flicker on a gleaming silver screen round as an eye. Dear moon, bright moon, look down with your hare filled eye. Let your light swim into the garden like a little fish. Spangles splash among the shadows, silvering the weeds. Dazzling bright, stung with light, the hare on her haunches sits. An ear flops over her eye. Down in the garden I go after midnight not knowing how, somnambulant, white shining. I fly along Punt Road to catch the late, late, late night bus. A car near misses. I am nearly white shine on the asphalt. The moon long set lies chuckling under the earth. Like lava, but cold. A rock with a hare filled eye.16
The moon’s hare sits on her haunches, her ears a glimmer with night. She leaps in circles around the earth. Such a shadow play, a movie!
Racket and ruin wake me like eggs smashed in a pan tossed in the wake of a golden bird, a phoenix soaring, tail streaming flame. A feather falls into morning’s calm. It strikes my cheek. A sign.
Hurtling at speed the wind rends boughs from trees. My night mind meanders among a million myths. Rivers appear. My shadows glean unspoken escapes in blind sleep.
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Wind
The wind howls like wolves savaging the passages of night. The stars explode in a vernal rage.
Petals Petals scattered in the wind’s eye pattern a phantasm falling, feigning, blue veins, red arteries, yellow pollen glitters in the leaves torn from old books, the tales of fabulous crowns. Visionary emblazonsfissionmymind’s eye. The sparkling dust exults in the diaspora of light. 18
What of perfect form an arc, a circle, a perfect issuu.com/marianwebbfacebook.com/marianwebbpoetrymarianwebb.blogspot.com.audiffraction?
