Haiga Archive

Riverboat #1

riverboat man
eighty years
up Muddy Creek

gallery opening
a critic lingers over a full bodied red

rising with the sun
we carry our dreams to a new home

highland lake
casting a fly
into layers of pink

My friend and I explore the playground at the end of my street. The old equipment has suddenly become punctuated by strange bright contraptions. We take turns to climb inside a mounted tractor tyre while the other spins it around. Then swing in and out on a large, rotating kite. But we still end up on old favorites. We scramble over monkey bars, turn dizzy on the merry-go-round and scream down the highest slide…

white cockatoos
crown the pine trees….
summer nuts

Parking my car years later in front of the old playground.
I stare out across an ocean of neatly mown grass with one small island of equipment.

broken nest
the peanut package warns
it might contain nuts

Breathe in,
to the spring and my birth.
Breathe out,
to the summer of my youth.
Breathe in,
to the autumn of my life.
Breathe out,
to the winter of my death.

the sea breeze carries a taste of incense… temple offering