Joyce Parkes

In memory of Judith Wright

Persistent rain and wind gusts downed

branches, whole trees, electricity fees,

returned a wood fire and candlelight

to prominence. The fire, like passion,

brought warmth to the room. Candle-

light, like memory, gave enough light

to write on the windfalls of that winter

when her eyes became readers with

glasses. Resting on her ears, the glasses’

arms heard of drifting and dendrite

years — its leaves of envy, animosity,

acuity, amity, tapping on her window

on days of denouement or how so.

Is she looking at a windfall kept

for the fire, or seeing a winter’s wrap,

would she dwell on convex and

concave* lenses, place a magnifying

glass on the map staring at her

and write on tracts of eucalyptus

and pine trees, spinifex and ivy,

discover place and pith?

*From the poem Some Words by Judith Wright

Joyce Parkes is published in Cordite, Overland, Pen International, The Journal of the Australian Irish Heritage Association, Creatrix, The New England Review, Westerly, foam:e, Best Australian Poetry 2005 (UQP), Abridged, Axon and similarly committed literary journals, magazines and anthologies in Australia and in seven other countries. She writes to unravel what produces irony, disdain, audacity, empathy and reverie.