Tag: heart

  • Saudade
  • Mother’s Hands

    Mother’s Hands

    Advertisement for Myers Gloves, by Margaret Watkins (Canada), 1920s. Mother’s Hands Strong enough to lift me each time I couldn’t rise. Soft as cotton wool, washing dirt from scrapes and tears from eyes. Firm enough to model clay and boys, to bowls and men, yet fine when stroking ivory keys– Für Elise and Clair de…

  • The Walk

    The Walk

    I wake a full hour early for the rare gift of a walk in the woods with my father. He is a silent giant among misty ghost gums. I tell him, Watch! See how fast I can run. He doesn’t yell when I trip and fall, but lifts me with unfamiliar, calloused hands. At the…

  • Owl Song

    Full moon to you I sing this tune— bright streams, hidden dells, clouds and dreams sublime. Ours to share, for all time. Ryan Stone

  • Numb

    In empty spaces echoes fade to silent grief, whispers on the wind Ryan Stone

  • The Journey Home

    The Journey Home

    She tells me her pain is a squall, sudden and vicious, like a flash storm whipping in from Bass Strait to batter King Island. Do you remember our Island, Garth? Her doctors build shelters; nurses batten hatches, but this tempest won’t blow over. She says her pain is a vulture now, circling the desert on…

  • In Passing

    In Passing

    After all the years, the heart-shaped promises, a Ponts des Arts love lock one Spring, it has come now to this — a sterile room, too-small-for-two bed, plastic flowers, faint urine smell. Standing bedside, she strokes and hums, remembers a warm night by the sea. The setting sun kisses white hair golden. Tremors become twitches,…

  • Hourglass

    We walk the tide line barefoot on the morning sand, your steps close by mine. Later, I return alone but no trace of us remains. Ryan Stone

  • Ghosts at Dawn

    Ghosts at Dawn

    Too thin – you now exist within a pause as dawn retracts her claws from day; you fade, while I must stay. Ryan Stone

  • Queen of Nothing

    Queen of Nothing

    I barely remember how the hues of December cast sepia waves through her hair. Those words she first uttered: out here there be monsters, seemed a plea, not a thing to beware. A quick realisation: she sailed a maelstrom mainlining a vein named despair. Lost within dreams of heroine queens, I drew heart-shaped clouds in…