Wrote this one last week while the weather was typically awful and I was feeling nostalgic. Then I did a drawing because pictures just make everything way better. Byron Lighthouse (2017) pencil, ink and acrylic on paper.

Five months of inclemency in this southern place
where choosing a hoodless overcoat is risky business.
A bold move, brave move. To think you can assume the weather.
Umbrellas with patterns, colours and trims. Charming accessories,
they are not. Burden under bigger burden.
Cumbersome, wet and space claiming instead.
Winter is dead but its spirit weighs heavily on Spring.

I love you, Melbourne, but your greyness clouds my heart too long.

Bring me back to my birth place:
Bohemian sun land at the far-most edge of East.
Air that asks for hearty breathing,
filling lungs, filling mind, fill whole body full of life.
And gold is how it feels; magic, star-born gold.
Waves swell. Heart swells.
Clarity in purest form, let me soak you in.

Where’d he go? To Wategos. To be with the bottle-nosed.
The lighthouse shows the sailors home until the sunrise greets it.
The rocks the seals claimed long ago, unbothered by the lashing sea.
Faraway icon of faraway world. Different realm. Unbiased peace.
I embrace all and it accepts me, lest inky-glopped jellies say differently.

Nearby Cabarita, may your sea cradle my sister.
Ash in rock pool, swept away.
In the water, twirl and sway, to the flow.
Here, found beauty in debris and
air gives balance to ocean and land.

The crab knows her path, only walks it differently so,
I’ll take my beginner steps, once more, at The Pass,
by the small lagoon shore, toes curled in sand, I stand, I say,
I am, for you are, Universe. Maker and upholder. Upholder of me.
We are each other’s. I am of you.  A force to counter gravity.

Oh, Byron, you’ve left your mark.