The Comings and the Goings, Melbourne, March 2014

From our backyard garden the shapes of summer--though oh so hot--lemons, tomatoes raised from seed, and our dear eggplants, hanging so heavy from their sturdy center, smooth and purple. The small plenty that would mean life to so many, displaced and hiding from our human failures, the throngs coming out into the narrow valley between hate- destroyed buildings of Syria, the sunlight harsh on their eyes, the dust heavy on their hands and I see shadows behind them, others in the aftermath of other wars, the camp gates open, and their shrunken bodies stumbling into an almost searing freedom. How in a world of lemons and tomatoes, of life- shaped fruits, do we keep punishing so many. A silly woman's way of putting things perhaps, but when I run my hand over the round fullness of the purple fruit, my lesbian queer hand, I think of how close to the gifts of life we could walk.

Our shared back lane, once used to collect the night soil as it was called in the 19th century. The horse- drawn wagons rumbling over the blue stone cobbles. Now sometimes a possum can be seen gleaning the fruit trees that lower their branches over the corrugated iron fences; large fruit bats fly over in the evening on their way to doing good, tasting sweetness and spreading its possibilities at the same time. My New York life is far down the lane way, through the portal of memory, just there where one path leads to another.

My darling, the sun living in her hair, simply peeling a loved orange, all orange, her hands, worker's and thinker's hands, taking what they desire.

Our dear little Cello, now blind, still sits attentively at his post. His back straight, his ears looking for the sights of the world before him. With all that is left him, he takes on his world. A silly woman, who weeps with love, for a blind dog and a woman peeling an orange.