This week’s poem – about remembering the simple things that create moments of happiness – is by Adelaide contributor Kristin Martin.
Simple
It was not the sun’s warm invitation
nor the baby-blanket blue sky
that drew her out on that early autumn day
but the chore of pegging up washing,
or heaping dry clothes in the basket,
she does not recall.
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Nor does she recall why she paused and glanced up.
Did she hear the wings flapping?
Or feel the displaced air?
Surely not. For while hovering directly above,
the bird was at too great a height,
that of the canopy of a hundred-year gum.
But she remembers the piano-key wings
moving furiously against the immense blue
while all else stilled and was forgotten.
And she has promised herself she will always remember
at that moment she felt simply,
happy.
Kristin Martin lives in Adelaide near the sea with her family, five spiny leaf insects, two canaries, two turtles, five fish and hundreds of earthworms. Her poems and short stories can be found in various magazines and anthologies, including Tadpoles in the Torrens (Wakefield Press, 2013), and on her website: kristinmartin.net.
Readers’ original and unpublished poems up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. A poetry book will be awarded to each contributor.