Friday, May 30, 2003
Over the past two months, I've been in two situations where I've had to counsel others about grief. Grief is certainly an individual reaction - for example not everyone wants to live out their emotions on a public webpage like this, but for me a public declaration of love - which is what this is in part - has helped me get over a large hump of the grieving. It's still going to be a bumpy ride.
I must say that the wound within me ached strongly in sympathy with the mother who had just lost her child to drowning, and the parents who had just been told their child had muscular dystrophy. I wanted to - I did- tell them I knew what it felt like, that I knew the world had just fallen away beneath their feet and NOTHING mattered any more. That no one could get through, and that friends could cushion, but not take away the pain. I wanted to tell them that the microseconds in between the agony, when you could function almost normally and not feel the huge void, do get longer with time, though you would never believe it at first.
The other thing that these families and others have taught me over the past few months is that others have been far less lucky than Casey. It would be hard to accept this homily from others - sounds a bit too trite doesn't it. But Casey was born with an intact brain (I can testify that not only was it intact, but very fast and hazardous to play with at times). He grew up in a loving family environment and was sure of his education, the stability of his home and the quality of his friends. He lived in the best country on earth and enjoyed its resources to the max. He was confident of his health until the moment he collapsed - 30 long and joyful years. All this made him a positive person that many loved deeply. In effect he had 30 uninterrupted years to pass on who he was to others, in whom he now lives on.
On that note, a poem I wrote about one of the many things he taught me.
Legacy
Your hands vibrate, a maestro
of hand-eye coordination:
mouse moving masterfully
to control destiny.
Soon-to-be shogun
or killer of mutant half-aliens,
you always liked to play god.
A beer half-full
squats expectantly,
tail almost wagging.
Late morning sun
wanders in, pausing to sniff
at lingering bacon and coffee.
Later you will shift
to the purple-flower beanbag
made expressly for your worship:
bestowing gracious attention on book and TV alike.
(you bat at my feet
as they scurry past)
This then, your legacy:
my mind set free to play.
BH, 22/4/03
I guess one of his other parting gifts to me was the return of my art in poetry, which I had abandoned when I began medical school. As you can see, I cling to this gift now.
Piokiwi 7:09 pm
Tuesday, May 27, 2003
It's been a good weekend. Went to Mutawintji National Park (middle of desert, 1 1/2 hours from here) with the Barrier Rangers, the local bushwalking group. We had good mix of experts in the group - geologists to point out all the interesting rocks, including some ancient sandworm fossils, teachers, an Aboriginal guide called Gerald who introduced us to some bushtucker and interpreted the ancient rock art. Mutawintji is at the crossroads of several Aboriginal Dreaming tracks and has been the site of special ceremonies for thousands of years, so all the caves are filled with art. As one guy with us demonstrated, there are artefacts like spear points and rock scrapers lying all over the ground too.
Over the evening campfire, apart from eating fantastic BBQ food, I learnt more important local Broken Hill jargon. An "A-grader" is someone who was BH born (and therefore has more standing in the community), a B-grader is someone who has come to BH "from away" but been here for a few years/bought a house, and a C-grader is a wannabe tourist like me.
I was stiff yesterday and feeling decidedly sedentary, but feeling more energetic today - might even join next weekend's walk.
Piokiwi 4:58 pm
Friday, May 23, 2003
Went to my second guitar lesson last night, and all I can say about my left hand is oww-ouch. But my new Yamaha steel string acoustic is a honey. I'm surprised how light it is, and it's gorgeous leaning in to hear the sounds of the strings being plucked.
Piokiwi 4:47 pm
Thursday, May 22, 2003
Is Broken Hill the last place in the world where there is blue sky and shiny sun? It's positively pissing in Auckland. It's pouring so much in Sydney that the streets are flooded and people are contemplating using lilos to get around. Well, for all you drowned rats out there: ha!! The sun is massaging my back, and hopefully the flies will hold off when we go on a bushwalking trip to Mutawintji National Park this weekend.
Piokiwi 1:14 pm
Monday, May 19, 2003
Uggg. My brain is muffled by a bad headcold - nice to know that winter is here, and kid-lurgies with it. Probably the excesses of the last few days haven't helped. Thurs night a group of us went to watch the Premiere (ta dada!!) of Matrix reloaded - starting midnight. Unfortunately at 2 am, 25 mins from the end, there was a powercut and the screen went blank. There were a lot of disppointed hospital staff huddled over coffee the next morning, while everybody else threw amused glances at us. Tick in the box of Another Broken Hill Experience. Last night was Matrix Reloaded - reloaded, and must say that it probably wasn't worth sitting thru most of the movie again. What kind of ending was THAT!!!? Apart from that, was up all Sat nite with a sick child, and therefore comatose through most of Sunday.
Have been painting again.
I call this Aue, after the Maori expression of grief and emotion. (it's subtitled Desert Scream).
To show that I now only feel this way some of the time, here's two more poems:
Steps
Yesterday
I touched a final kiss
to your lips incongruously warm
The false rasp
of a ventilator
sounded in your chest
then was silent:
“he is gone”
A chasm split my world,
I swallowed sweet daggers of pain,
and yet the flood
was bottomless.
Today
I stand atop a mountain
unsteady feet trusting my boots
I toss your name
high, to the skies.
It falls back towards me in joyful peals.
Flinders Ranges, 22/4/03
On Devil’s Peak
This place is silent.
Plants meditate serenely
uninterrupted by idle bird-talk
or the clattering toil of insects.
Sunlight sidles slyly
across the rock,
pauses to nuzzle my neck
then pecks at the blue shadows
in the mountains.
Flinders, 22/4/0
Piokiwi 11:08 pm
Thursday, May 15, 2003
The weather here has been a bit crazy. It was so foggy yesterday that cars were driving with their fog lightson (strange for a place where people have trouble finding their umbrellas when it rains.) Now of course, it's back to the usual sun belting down out of a cloudless sky. Hmm. One of my patients, a 6 year old, apparently goes nuts and uncontrollable at school when it rains - good thing he lives here.......
Piokiwi 3:06 pm
Tuesday, May 13, 2003
Tonight I was at the monthly Poets in the Pub meeting at the Black Lion, a well known spot in Broken Hill (although mainly for its cheap cocktails and the roughness of its clientelle after midnight rather than poetry). It was a good meeting. I met lots of other writers, including some authors visiting from Sydney, and indulged in a round robin poetry sharing feast. Broken Hill has its own Barry Crump, a bush balladeer in the finest tradition by the name of Snake. His poetry was pretty cool.
Unfortunately in the middle of one of my performances my mobile went off - it was the hospital, as I was on call!! I had to quickly duck outside, but luckily it was an advice call only and I was shortly able to get back to my performance, much to the amusement of all. I ended up singing "Ode to the Humble Butt" very loudly, though I'm not sure I got the tune right. I swear I was only drinking Coke.
AN ODE TO THE HUMBLE BUTT
(to the tune of Advance Australia Fair*)
What would we do without our butts
When we are in the bush?
When mudslides slip and boulders flip
I end up on my tush
Far underneath the forest's sway
The noble backside saves the day
Brave, resilient and tough
Thank goodness for my butt
Till journey's end, I will depend
Thank goodness for my butt.
* As a Kiwi, I'm not overly familiar with this tune....so any corrections as to meter and/or extra verses, are much appreciated. Kiwis: count this as alternative (and much more amusing) lyrics to use on those all-too-frequent teethgrinding occasions when the Aussies win......)
So here's something I wrote the other day after being much struck by the sight of a blue eyed, bearded man in a blue Volvo:
Xmas in May, Broken Hill style
Santa drives a sky-blue Volvo
He dropped by hospital today
Blue eyes hiding behind straggly brows
Stained beard bursting out the window
Mrs Claus was in the back
wearing a floral housedress
her day off I suppose
She christened the garden
with a fairy-like wave of her cigarette,
then creaked open the door,
squeezed out, and
handed Santa a crutch
as he got out.
He only had one leg.
BH 8.5.03
Make of it what you will....... I did use poetic licence a bit here.
Another one about Casey, on a more positive note. (I'm slowly getting there).
Monologue?
From under my lids
you ogle me as I undress
I slip hastily under the sheet
no privacy since you died
and climbed into my head.
You jump on the floor of my brain,
stomping out rhythms,
swing from the rafters yoo-hooing.
You quieten
once I point out
that I still have a period of mourning,
reckon it’s OK to cry.
But OK to smile too,
after all, you always found that
my cutest part.
“So you had a half-glass of wine,”
you say, a grin of approval
lighting my dark recesses,
“and you reckon you woke with
a hangover? Ah, I never thought I’d see the day….”
You bastard.
You haven’t changed.
BH, 6.05.03
Piokiwi 2:14 am
Thursday, May 08, 2003
A busy weekend ahead, with community markets (where I am showing some paintings for comment, and reading poetry), and the hospital ball. It's been a full-on week at work too and today I have a locum paediatrician (boss) to show around.
Have had time in the mornings (with breakfast) to read some books of poetry that I got out of the library: and my sister sent me a book of Hone Tuwhare poems a few weeks ago, knowing how I love his work. I shared some with my writing group which, being Aussies, hadn't known what they were missing out on. It's been far too long.....must do some more reading.
More of my Casey thoughts then...... I still think of him a lot, and will miss him for life. But I'm very grateful that I knew him and enjoyed so much of him- and he has become part of me now.
Eulogy
I could not say
that, sensing your fate,
you burned brightly, a brief light
in the darkness:
You did not want to go.
I could not call you
an angel
briefly alighting,
too good for this earth.
You of all people
anchored in the world,
my link to reality.
You mastered the sleep-in,
endless computer games and beers,
patient explanations of sport and electronics.
I pummelled you endlessly
daily trivia, instincts, superstitions
insane beliefs and self doubts,
You were a calm cushion for my fears.
You taught me to smile,
and then to laugh.
18/3/03 Flight to NZ
Piokiwi 3:56 pm
Wednesday, May 07, 2003
To Broken Hill
I have stepped off the wheel
and journeyed to the shore
to farewell my love.
And now I return
to this castle in the desert
bastion of history and culture
village of surreal normalcy
I cling
the wheel has turned without me.
I watched
him paddle into shadow
each stroke slashing deep grooves
on my heart:
these cannot be erased.
You cannot see my wound.
I hide behind my smile.
24/3/03 Syd-BH
Piokiwi 12:45 am
For those who are in Sydney, I'm very proud to announce that my baby sister Roseanne's short film, HENCHMAN, will be screening at the Sydney Film Festival on the 14th June at 9.05 pm. I'm planning to fly from Broken Hill to be there!!
Piokiwi 12:43 am
Monday, May 05, 2003
I've realised I haven't posted a poem that I referred to in my post on the newsletter, on how inaccurate photos can be when they convey that we are feeling "happy" when in fact we are feeling totally disconnected and distraught.
Here it is then:
Dialogue
Look. Can you see me?
For though you see a laughing girl
with crowing babies on her lap,
you see but a shadow.
I am invisible: I fled with the light.
One Sunday I heard him
step off the world: I grasped,
but it was too late.
Now I linger on the edge
searching: floating in the inky
blackness of space.
These words you speak,
these notes I write: they are but
the babble of a background radio.
You cannot know as I pose and smile
that I feel his lips,
his tongue moist and soft and hungry,
my body longs to nestle
in his back.
My mind is precious. For through me,
he lives still. He is in my smile,
my secret look of longing.
He came to me one night
and left his scent on my body.
I reach for him now,
but in the morning
I am left to caress my greenstone
its curves smooth and firm as flesh.
So do not say I am grieving well
as I tiptoe along my tightrope.
You are speaking to a well-constructed mannekin.
Shrunken inside, I pull the ropes
to continue living: the
alternative is no answer.
3/4/03 Glenelg
Piokiwi 1:21 am
Enjoyed Mildura this weekend. We (me and two others from the hospital) stayed last night in a cabin by the River Murray, and I went out and sat under the gum trees for a while looking up at the stars at about 11 o'clock at night... always lovely. Missed a certain warm body sitting next to me though.
Had this thought:
Riverbeach
Tonight
no glaring moon interrupts
the stars in their glorious profusion.
A lone insomniac bird
squeaks, and rapidly hushes.
The river flows on in soft silence.
You said:
"We are all made from stardust,
and one day we will return".
How beautiful the sky is
with you in it.
-Mildura 3/5/03
Piokiwi 1:15 am
Saturday, May 03, 2003
This is a more formal poem I wrote - constrained by the rhyme. I usually prefer a more flowing style. But see what you think:
Requiem
Not for you a stony plaque
With flowers weeping drily:
Nor wooden borders rising stark
To cage your anguished bones.
Your breath fled free from that still bed
And flesh escaped in fire;
And ashes too it will be said
Will drift on mountain high.
When morning comes the sun will kiss
My tears on icy sleet;
And melting streams of crystal bliss
Will mingle in the sea.
27/3/03
It's one of my feelings about death. I don't know if there is life after death. Scientifically, no one has ever proved it to me, although I'd like to believe it. But I do take some comfort in the fact that our molecules at least will rejoin the grand cycle of life after we die, and therefore we will again become the sea, the sky, and the life all around.
Another idea I agree with has been expressed eloquently by Pasternak:
But all the time life, always one and the same, always incomprehensibly keeping its identity, fills the universe and is renewed at every moment in innumerable combinations and metamorphoses….. Consciousness is a beam of light directed outwards, it lights up the way ahead of us…. You in others are yourself, your soul. This is what you are. This is what your consciousness has breathed and lived on and enjoyed throughout your life. – Your soul, your immortality, your life in others. And what now? You have always been in others and you will remain in others. And what does it matter to you if later on it is called your memory? This will be you – the you that enters the future and becomes a part of it.- from “Dr Zhivago” by Boris Pasternak, English translation 1958.
Piokiwi 12:19 pm
Friday, May 02, 2003
I have a weird painting to share. It's called "still life with figures" and although it was executed in a loose "watercolour/acrylic" style over one night, I'd mused over the idea for weeks. It's something to do with people picked in their prime......
Piokiwi 11:28 pm
I'd like to report that dinner last night went off very successfully and there were no disasters with my rather ambitious menu!
This weekend I'm getting out of Broken Hill - the key to survival round here. A small group of us are going to Mildura, a slightly bigger town about three hours away (across the desert). Should be nice. I have seafood on my mind.....it's not on the coast, it's on the river Murray, but still closer to the port cities than BH....
Living in BH is generally OK. I like small towns (for short periods - being a city girl at heart) because it's a great chance to join a community. I have been doing night classes - painting starts again next week - and have become quite an active member of the Sunday writing group, which next week will once again be performing poetry at the community markets.
More poetry then:
Day into Night
Waves like heartbeat
drag on the shore
pulling my thoughts
to you
The sun will slide
into the ocean tonight,
melting in a final splash of fire
in water already dreaming
Cold sand sifts my feet,
the unseen boom of sea
taking up your rhythm
of life
Tomorrow as I stir
from sweaty sleep
the sun will return,
lighting a world flowing
with you.
3/4/03 Glenelg
Piokiwi 9:32 pm
Thursday, May 01, 2003
Speaking of disconnection, here's a painting I completed recently. It's called "Fall off the World" , and goes with the song that was in my first post.
Piokiwi 1:03 pm
On the subject of war, here's a poem I wrote a few weeks ago - the first expression of my feelings on topics other than loss and grief. I felt so numb and disconnected/disempowered/disembowelled when it all happened. Now that I can get fired up about other issues, I guess it's a good thing.
Carelessness
“Losing your life” – that seems so careless
but am I also to blame, for
“losing you”: you slipped,
I grasped,
but you were gone.
Even my tears could not reach you
as they told me on the phone
how your eyes dilated
for one last look.
Tonight, others are being irresponsible.
In a barricade of bombs,
Some are letting their own lives slip.
Callous mothers are even losing their babies.
5/4/03 Adelaide
Piokiwi 12:59 pm
Tonight I'm cooking dinner for 12 - the junior docs and medical students. I've always been fascinated by bush tucker, and although it may seem strange that a Chinese Kiwi from Remuera is cooking Aussie bush tucker, on the menu is: beer damper in paperbark, wattleseed and pear bread, cajun kangaroo with quandong sauce, chicken in corrobee spices, macadamia and bean salad, greens with kutjera relish, and lemon myrtle icecream with macadamia nut and wattleseed tuile. (sounds posh - but it's all experimentation!!)
Piokiwi 12:54 pm
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