Christmas, 2018
ON this Christmas Eve, of
2018, in this spacious lounge room, in this moderately sized house, in this
fairly large suburb and this fairly highly populated city of Melbourne, in this
large country and continent called Australia, as part of an overall tiny little
plot or particle of a much bigger world or planet, I sit here contemplating the
year I have had and wishing, like Sylvia Plath, I could have more days of
inspiration:
‘On the stiff twig up
there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging
its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident
To set the sight on fire
In my eye, not seek
Any more in the desultory
weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall
as they fall,
Without ceremony, or portent.’
I look for inspiration in the joy that others give me- the words of
Sylvia Plath in poems like ‘Contusion’ and ‘Medusa’, the comfort I feel from
listening to ‘Astral Weeks’ and lately rediscovering the joy of Paul McCartney,
trying to feel grateful for the prolonged time spent living in England and in
my mind recalling the Yorkshire moors and the rugged coastlines of Cornwall and
Northumberland, playing netball in the backyard with the family, gazing on my
beautiful books through the glass of my treasured bookcase, feeling tired but
nourished work-wise…
In terms of heightened feelings of joy or anticipation, or
experiencing a sense of wonder, or being moved by the simplicity of a beautiful
wave or the colours of a fallen leaf, or that sense of uncontrollable laughter
or bliss and breathless awareness or serendipity, joie de vivre, even
transfiguration, rebirth, enlightenment, effulgence, epiphany, transmutation… I
will be patient and await another year.
Contacting my angel, contacting my angel
She's the one, she's the one, that satisfies
Contacting my angel she's the one that satisfies
She's the one that I adore
She's the one, she's the one, that satisfies
Contacting my angel she's the one that satisfies
She's the one that I adore
In a telepathic message for my baby
In a little village, through the fog
Here comes my baby, I can tell, I can tell
By the way she walks
Said I've been on a journey up the mountain side
And I drank the water from the stream
It was pure, pure water and I got completely healed
In a little village, through the fog
Here comes my baby, I can tell, I can tell
By the way she walks
Said I've been on a journey up the mountain side
And I drank the water from the stream
It was pure, pure water and I got completely healed
I met a presence on the mountain side
And he looked so radiant and he was the
Youth of eternal summers
Like a sweet bird of youth in my soul
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul, in my soul
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul
And he looked so radiant and he was the
Youth of eternal summers
Like a sweet bird of youth in my soul
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul, in my soul
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul
(Van Morrison)