We were here

Footprints follow wherever I tread

Ink flows on the paper 

Trailing dreamings from my head

And heart

We leave marks

Songlines

Tracks

Leading back

A child’s sandcastle is gone on the tide

I watch it fall

Wondering what is the point of it all

All this writing

Stringing words together

Creating pictures 

Leaving marks

On a cave wall 

Thousands of years old

A spray can spurts quietly in the dark

Tagging

Bragging

He was here

So am I

So am I

A pyramid crumbling around the edges

Such edifice 

Such pride

He was here

So was she

So am I

Shards of pottery

Gravestones in a row

They were here

Now they’re gone 

Where do we go?

Or come from for that matter

Because we all think

We matter 

In a dusty shed an artist mixes colours 

Paints without thought of a buyer

He is here 

So he paints

She crafts pots

Another inks dots

Building sandcastles

The child laughs

Stomps

Knocks it down

Blowing breath to fire

I watch the paper burn

News story 

Black and white 

Now turning brown

Byline meant so much more

When she wrote it

Now it’s yesterday’s sandcastle

Here comes the wave

Wave

Waving goodbye

But you were here

As was I

The header picture is of Uluru or Ayres Rock an Australian Icon and a place of great importance to the local Anangu people. 

The photo was taken on a trip there earlier this year.

We sat in the dark, watched the sun come up over the rock. We were a fair way back, the rock is huge and in order to get good photos you have to stand further away from it.

Later we moved closer and toured some of the aboriginal paintings in various sacred places with our guide.

To be near something so timeless and ancient to feel your diminutive size and momentary lifespan, the fleeting fragile nature of our time here.

For me it was very moving – haunting and comforting at the same time.

It provides an anchor for the restless soul. 

Some things do last – for great periods of time barely changed by the passage of so many seasons, storms and events.

We are so very small and fleeting by comparison 

So very small

And

Fleeting

I used to struggle with why I blogged, wrote, created, chewed pencils, stared at walls trying to come up with something or nothing much at all – wondering all the time if perhaps I was wasting gigantic tracts of time and should be doing something more worthwhile instead. 

I don’t worry about that anymore.

Do what you love – whatever that is because we are only here for a short time.

4 thoughts on “We were here

  1. This poem is absolutely beautiful. very powerful and deep. To be near something so ancient must have been incredible. Thank you for posting this 🙂

Leave a Reply