Visit to Collected Works Bookshop

I visited Collected Works Bookshop yesterday, settled myself on one of the tall black chairs  in the homely environment and chatted with long time friends & proprietors Kris and Retta Hemensley. Collected Works is a poetry in translation oasis tucked away up on Level 1 of the historic Nicholas Building in the heart of Melbourne. It was great to be there, to make contact, to talk about writing, to be surrounded by books. Kris was the first person to publish my poetry over thirty years ago in his publication The Merri Creek or Nero.  Where has the time gone? It's a secret that remains hidden until, like an  unwelcome and indecent display it flashes its naked truth. When I left  Kris and Retta's company I vowed not to walk through the city crowds, the jostling, twisting and turning of the body in order to avoid people who were eager to get somewhere, anywhere, so I strolled instead down the long, narrow, cool lane ways shielded from the blazing sun. I was good, it was good. I was managing the sound and movement, I even sat for a short while in Bourke Street until two fire engines roared in to tend fire & smoke billowing from the top of the old Bradman's store. I read  from the book I purchased on the way home on the tram and later around dusk, whilst I savored a slice of the rhubarb tart I'd made a couple of days ago.  I am reminded as I recall this of a piece of writing in Kris Hemensley's Exile Triptych (Vagabond Press, Sydney, 2011).

My nose pressed o the bedroom window I watch my father continue digging. The smoke rises from Old Wilkes' bonfire of rhubarb & cabbage leaves, thistles, grass, branches, newspapers, rags, old sacks & boxes. I watch until dusk. Later, when I walk up the hall, my father turns from his noisy washing at the bathroom sink to regale me with the cryptic phrase. The morphing owl.  And he repeats the poem's opening verse. He'd repeat it all night if my mother didn't stop him with her tea-time summons. He's the same boy as before the War, turning the ways of the world over & over in his mind. He is never the elegist, twin of the night. The boy-father is a lyricist, delighting in the couplets & quatrains that celebrate one sunny day upon another. Now darkness falls upon the garden. It alone drives him from his remarkable toil. His digging is left unfinished as each day is for every boy.

Kris also writes a blog called Poetry and Ideas, which includes poetry from Australian and overseas writers.