First stars have a lot of pressure

Carry a lot of weight

It’s why they hang low in the sky

So many people pin their pain on them

Whispering

“Now that you’re gone – I’ll think of you, when I see the first star”

And I think of them

All those people

All that pain

And I pin mine instead on the rising sun

Knowing the world will always turn again

And there are no endings

Ever

*Memory is a gift. Mine are so clear and vivid that sometimes if I close my eyes, I can feel hands in mine.

Some have delicate skin, dry and rough, wrinkled like tulle and so fragile that a dozen small eruptions, bumps and grazes traverse their landscape. A thin gold band, worn and old, hangs too big for the finger it now enfolds, I stroke it gently with my own and it spins freely beneath the knuckle. And I watch your eyes close again, for the last time.

Yet just now, I saw your strong brown legs and laughing smile, screen door banging behind you as you leave to peg washing on the line. And I am barely waist height. The sun a burning flame above, bare feet dancing through the prickles, following Mum.

Where there is love

There is remembrance

And where there is remembrance

There is no end

*Header photo driving down Pitherty road, a trip home, enjoying the red dust in my side mirror. For Mums funeral my brother brought some red soil from Pitherty (our ancestral property) to scoop into her grave alongside flowers. Our old neighbour chose the flowers for his goodbye tribute saying “Marg would curse me for throwing more red dust down for her to clean up” and we smiled through wet eyes. Neither the mop nor dusting cloth could clean up red dust properly – I think it falls from our very veins

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Gods creations