Mark

Oldmate near Meeniyan, 

helping with the awning:

oldmate Mark,

with the rooftop tent

and plans to complete the lap.

 

That was me

some years ago. 

 

Mark, with the dry bag in the racks,

across the months before we met,

have you felt

like I felt back then?

Did you witness God at Nandroya Falls?

Did you marvel at Cable Beach?

Were you lonely at Derby? 

Have you longed for that girl? Ah, that girl. 

Perhaps you thought you’d bring her along 

some day. 

 

Mark,

lifting the bar at the front as I fix the sides,

thanks Mark. 

 

Mark, with time to spare to help a bloke,

did you think, 

as you scanned a border town, 

on love and

on absurdity? 

Did you read One Hundred Years of Solitude

whilst others went to work? 

 

Mark,

I’ll see you again in several years

in another version of here:

me still you and you still me

to the tune of the oldmate’s anthem,

where it all means nothing, Mark.

And yet it does mean something, too, 

doesn’t it? 

 

 

Hilarious

It’s intimidating at first.

 

Adolescence fights it by denial. 

 

We embrace it in time

and call it the stuff of spirit.

 

But then

we start to laugh.

And then we can’t stop laughing

(I’m not yet there).

We come to see

it’s just a prank.

The entire thing,

the entire performance of things,

is nothing short of hilarious. 

Compassion

Compassion

doesn't act as advertised.

It's not a moral code.

It's not political.

It's not a fabric.

 

Compassion is, say,

ceasing to judge the ones

who hardly read

and standing in awe of those

who build the house you can't.

But even more, it's stopping to learn

from those who practise neither

when stopping for those

who practise both.

 

It's loving another because they exist,

not "timing" or

"compa...tabi...lity".

 

It's accepting you're a yobbo,

have always been a yobbo,

will always be a yobbo;

 

that there isn't a soul

on earth

who's not a yobbo.

 

It's indifference to the win.

It's interest in the loss.

 

Compassion ain't religious statues,

calls for action

or righteous drives.

 

It's the final, drawn-out, heavy

admission:

 

you're just like everyone else.

 

No better,

no worse.

You have your gifts, your faults,

and you know as much

as anyone knows,

 

which is

of course

nothing, really.

Which is

about

as much as we ever need to know.

Here's to that

I’ve made my peace 

with most of the pretty things. 

I accept them now with shades of boredom,

though rarely jadedness. 

The jadedness flourished

only in those chasing days. 

 

But there’s a pretty thing 

still startling me:

the pretty girl. 

 

The pretty girl gets prettier.

The yearning grows,

the ache remains.

 

Time burrows through and finds 

the rocks

and dirt

and steel

and pipes

at the base of most of the

pretty things. 

 

But the pretty girl

gets prettier. 

 

It’s the start and end of revolutions. 

It’s how and why and where I

never reach enlightenment.

 

And here’s to that.

 

Here’s to the awe that lasts. 

Of those things

Of those things I’ve tried to find,

may I let them go entirely. 

 

I searched for fame and influence.

How goofy. 

May I only search for the little licks 

the whitewash gives

when it starts its descent from sand. 

 

The politics – it revved in me.

May that keep to being idle. 

May my gaze be on the feathered wings,

for they only lift the present up.

They must leave the lump behind.  

 

I’ve wanted to be wanted 

by all the girls in the room.

I’ve had my grand designs. May they keep to toppling down

so I see the show completely. 

 

I’ve waited for fate in the form of career.

May I only wait 

for the quiet breeze

at the end of a climb

at the edge of a town

that puts dust on my boots

and peace in my pockets.