“Only Love Can Break Your Heart”

When you were young
and on your own
How did it feel
to be alone?
I was always thinking
of games that I was playing.
Trying to make
the best of my time.

But only love
can break your heart
Try to be sure
right from the start
Yes only love
can break your heart
What if your world
should fall apart?

I have a friend
I’ve never seen
He hides his head
inside a dream
Someone should call him
and see if he can come out.
Try to lose
the down that he’s found.

But only love
can break your heart
Try to be sure
right from the start
Yes only love
can break your heart
What if your world
should fall apart?

I have a friend
I’ve never seen
He hides his head
inside a dream
Yes, only love
can break your heart
Yes, only love
can break your heart

Neil Young

She took out her heart
(and shook it all about)
it dripped with honey and blood
she felt the hot viscous fluid
slide lusciously between her fingers
heard the drip drip drip
Splat on the concrete floor
his studio austere
white white white
all the while he stitched and scratched
and bound his stories
into tight bundles
not looking up not smelling
the ferrousness not hearing
the timpatic drips
not seeing the pleasure
in her eyes

Once upon a time a woman lived in a cave. Heart broken. Each morning she went to the nearby forest to collect sticks for her fire. Each stick smelt of despair.

Once upon a time
there was a woman who lived in a cave
with her ghosts for companions
Stars Moons Sky she sang
And the woman agreed
Swing Low Sweet Chariot he sang
And the woman agreed
Rest Your Weary Head On My Shoulder
And the woman agreed
The tunes she hummed
were all without a chorus

Polly sits in the orange chair on my veranda. All shambolic despite the suit. The grit of her day slips away between the cracks of the vinyl.

the green glints in the last light on the eastern side of the bitumen tar road white line running all the way south to the bottom of the country (where should there be a nuclear war we’d all be safest because the prevailing winds will save us from the deadly fog of destruction and slow death). one hundred kilometres an hour and the car hums along us on cheap sheep skin seats with orange peel and empty beer bottles as detritus. i’m looking for old landmarks this road is well traveled (i listen for memories of a baby perfect rose skin to begin crying for my milk and my foot itchy to keep going to get to the green green paddocks and peace of bush home after days with my mum her grandma and city smells and shopping centres and well meaning advice) where is the nursery sign, the famous nursery filled with heriatge plans forgotton breeds of apple trees, hyacinth bulbs? not there anymore. black water, the hill casts a shadow so the white egrets covering the mud island have grey wings (on the shady western side of the road). they launch in finding space amongst their own flying up and others landing like bees coming home and the others leaving for the hive. spots of last light change pieces of the hundred year old grass from  grey to verdant green. the cow’s who’s backbones make this countryside move more quickly and actively sopping up the last minutes of daylight as if sensing their last breath, realising their fate. two lock horns a spectacular last dance.

i said i wanted life presented to me on a plate. gift wrapped (american style in a box with a shiny bow). i thought i didn’t have that. i do.

lucky me.

this eye

with lashes

is my daughter’s

gold beautiful durable hard and soft

all at once

And now I stand barefoot and sneezing at the edge of freshly harvested crop. The truck’s motor just silenced and still smelling of fire and brimstone

I wait for the header to finish its round. Eyes squinted against the haze and dust and sun.

I watch the what wheat pouring into the truck. Wheat dust streaming out into a cloudless sky. I will drive it back to the home paddock and auguer it into the silo.  I imagine the silyk, itchy, sinking feeling of diving into the mountain of what. Death by drowning.

“Did you know that if a ram got into this crop he would grow tits, and his balls would shrink up?” Not a hint of leer. Just a fact, a flannel checked shirt and shorts too short.

“What if it was a ewe?”

“her uterus would, you know, grow and eventually fall out.”

“Oh.” I say.

Nobody told me how much it would hurt. Not my doctor, not my sister or mother.They hinted at it, though. It was almost as if there were no words for the simultaneous experience and death and brith and pain and life. They, my doctor, my sister and my mother said they would BE there! But in fact, they were not. i was alone there with a a screaming desire to escape.