Visit to a Cemetery

Visit to a Cemetery.

To stand and feel live, seemingly solid,
on the green grass in the afternoon cool,
trailing a woven thatch of bindies
behind me in the fringed hem of my long dress -
I searched in and out looking at all the headstones.

Some old and familiar to my child games,
some new and unfamiliar;
some I see with a slight shock, mentally erasing them
from life in the town below.

Coming to rest - acknowledging my father,
my grandfathers and grandmother,
relations all over -
I was never told.
I came and dreamt up my Mother
with all her love and I feathered my insides
for my life ahead.

I smiled at her headstone
with its ‘angels and flying ‘poetry’,
and felt the love rush in - allowing
me to leave her grave on the hill
which breathes in the soft morning,
grey blues and exhales like a perfume
the rose pink;
with no tears for now,
I go and put happy music on my car cassette player
and rattled away down the road,
the circle drawn behind me.

Therese Mackay      23/11/94