Big Mistake

 Mistakes are made

most every day

and all the days thereafter

but the biggest mistake

we often make

is the hardest one to master.

When we open the doors

to our brain

inviting guilt right in

it gnaws upon

our troubled minds

and dines on our thinking.

The holes it leaves

are ripe and primed

to fill with scorn 

and blaming,

those scarring webs

that block our way

to growth

and self-realising.

(Painting by a very young Emma Dean)

Waterfall Way Haikus

Atop a ridge,

 tuned by nature's hand

rock drums to play.

For Emma in New York

 

I look into her eyes

and see the little girl

hard at work

unriddling the world.

They said she’d

been here before

when she was born

this child of mine.

Perhaps that’s why

she throws herself

into the fullness of life

knowing it is counted

in a blink.

When she falls

I pick her up

and kiss the bruises.

Some I cannot reach.

They land inside

hidden from my view.

I know they hurt

behind her smiles.

She is beyond brave

this child of mine.

I’ve watched her

bounce back

time after time

not unlike

when she was three

on a trampoline

in Melbourne

refusing to stop

even for the dark.

She was reaching

for the stars.

She paints them

in her music

and if you listen

to the variations

on the theme

of her life

you can hear them.

Night Storms

 

Waves crash

on the thoughts

that fill her mind

cleaning out the debris

of the night-time 

swell and tide

of stormy seas

as her dream-sayer

paints the dawn-lit sands

with footprints

searching

for washed up pieces

to sculpt into the shape

of her world.

I Will Love You Forever

Their little arms,

 wrapped tight

around my heart,

pulsed

with the thrum thrum

of my joy

as they hungrily suckled

on love

and the promise

that I would

be there

for them

for all my days,

and beyond,

when the chamber

of my heart

filled

with all the love

of all my years

would open

and scatter

its seeds

far and wide

to every corner

of their being

to grow fruits

of love

for them

to pluck

and
feast upon.