Pale Blue

I’m in a pale blue mood

in Leichhardt, in Summer Hills,

a storybook explorer

afternoon sun in my face

the ghosts of my children’s years 

holding hands on busy corners, 

lemon bricks 

of the houses on the streets,

trees, and later, their screaming birds.

I get nervous about not being here,

about no heroic place to forever exist.

All my words, my poems,

a lattice of shadows and leaves 

on these concrete pavements,

love-letters across time

to grown-up souls,

blowing away like music 

scratching across stone.

Blood hearts, remember

the conversations we had 

about God 

and wind in the trees

the way books help you

Bob Dylan, Lorca,

Catcher in the Rye.

Me outside a home 

I did not own,

waiting for you 

because I could not wait.

The haikus and lyrics 

in pencil on kitchen wall,

those lines about a red boat of clay,

a man like a cross of himself 

and a fox.

All these wounds we had.

Love’s cutting truth 

in Christmas fairy lights 

slung from a neighbour’s branches,

me holding your ankles

searching for the wings at your heels.

I gotta go into the sky eventually.

Nothing to fret over.

We were true in love 

conquering the complicated gasps

of our feelings and sitting together 

now and again in a unity.