My Mother Disliked the Sea
My mother disliked the sea
after we arrived in Australia. She would say,
“Four weeks on a ship. Waves. Waves.
That’s all it was … And
the horizon never getting closer.”
Once, going on a picnic
with friends to Shellharbour
she sat with her back to the water.
“Seeing the waves makes me sick.
That ship was a prison.”
Was it nostalgia or homesickness
for Europe that made her feel as she did?
Or the Polish word zal to describe
a spiritual and physical longing
for something forever lost ?
Enticements to go to Manly on the ferry
or Bondi’s famous beach
fell on deaf ears.
“I’d rather stay home
and work in my garden,” she’d say.
“See how beautiful the roses are”.
Or, “The marigolds are out. Smallest of flowers
but their colour is so deep.”
Returning from her day job
she would bring home
seedlings and packets of seeds
from the nursery
to add to the flower garden.
It took me decades to learn
that’s where she belonged—
and she’d reached her horizon
by turning her back on the sea.
Peter Skrzynecki
My Mother Hangs Out the Washing
She carried the clothesbasket
on her hip—from laundry to clothesline
and from clothesline back to the house,
her hair tied back with a scarf
of red roses and green wreaths.
Happiest doing what she had to do,
uncomplaining, whatever the weather.
“One step at a time,” she would say.
“Go slowly and you’ll go further.”
Given opportunity, I wondered
what she might have otherwise become—
shopkeeper, dressmaker, nurse;
she would shrug off such suggestions
and return to my father in the garden
where they grew flowers and vegetables
that fed us all year.
My mother, content in her backyard,
hanging out the washing,
unburdened by a scarf
of red roses and green wreaths.
Peter Skrzynecki
The Poems Are Looking for You
The poems are looking for you
all the time—day, night, when your eyes burn
from lack of sleep
or when rain washes them
unexpectedly
and you laugh in relief.
A door opens
and you think
there might be a poem
in the next room—
sometimes there is, mostly
there is nothing except shadows,
furniture, paintings on walls,
a bookcase with too many books.
When your dogs
run inside to hide from thunder
you pat them,
reassure them, share their fear.
They lie at your feet
and the poems are in their eyes.
The poems are there
in images of your father
working in the garden—
picking fruit off trees
that he planted
while you watched and played
when you were a barefoot child.
The poems are there
when you discover a hill,
climb to its top
and the view below
takes away your breath.
The hill, the view
melt into the dark
by the time you reach home
and the poem you’ve carried
on your lips is written.
Fragments of words
will take hold of your tongue—
will become words
that become clouds, forests, rivers.
They are homeless children.
All you have to do is bring them home.
Peter Skrzynecki