old notepaper

Tags

art, creative writing, drawing, illustration, ink, meditations, outdoors, paper

August 2011

Friday, 5 August 2011 – sharpie fineliner on pink paper, 13.7 x 17.7 cm.

The clouds seem to drift backwards today – the opposite direction to their normal path. Trees sway in the winter winds that carry the intense scent of blooming wattles and scatter magnolia petals on the ground. When the sun breaks through the clouds, there is bright, warm light – strong and enlivening.

Birds sing, unseen in the evergreen branches of gum trees and cypress – blackbirds, magpies and crows. I walk, alone, to an open field and watch the blue storm clouds roll across the sky. A duck pecks at bugs in the grass and the frogs maintain a noisy chorus by the pond. The reeds are dried and rattle in the wind.

I return home and find a stash of unused letter writing paper given to my in my childhood. I unfold the discoloured and creased sheets and begin to write my impressions of the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

path of life

Tags

Bible, Christian, creative writing, spirituality, writing

You set me on a path of life -

though much of it winds through parched wastelands.

Yet even here are streams to water the way:

Sparkling, clear creeks clatter over smooth stones.

….. And in the solitude of mystic wanderings

Your voice whispers to me,

soft, faint and gentle.

You speak of comings storms and raging fires,

but in all this flows peace.

Peace: irrational, unfathomable, and

unmistakeable.

(1 Kings 19:11-13, Psalm 16: 11, Isaiah 32: 2, Luke 1: 79, Luke 5: 16, Philippians 4: 7)

the destruction of the swamp

Tags

agriculture, creative writing, links, memoirs, nature, writing

This creative writing piece first appeared in my redbubble creative writing portfolio in October, 2010.

It is a true story, drawn from my teen years living in the Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia.

The Destruction of the Swamp

I grieved when the swamp trees were cut down. The trees razed to make way for cattle. In the marshy soil where nothing grew but snakes and thin straggly trees that turned red in autumn. Walking across the rich deep grass and sinking into the wet soil. Watching the ibis fly away at my presence. Alone and alive in the thick undergrowth.

Then the farmer arrived with his chainsaw and carved a swathe through the swamp. The trees, gone, to make way for a muddy sparse paddock of thin pasture. Heavy boned Friesian cattle struggling through the wet soil, their pregnant bellies swaying as they try to pick a path through the muddy ground.

I look out the window and feel deep sorrow. The trees, gone. The birds, gone. The cattle trying to graze where the trees once grew. There was not enough new pasture to make it worthwhile.

Ten years later: the trees have regrown. The swamp beings to reclaim the soil. The valley here is too wet to support the cattle.

[source]

sunrise over swamps

Tags

Christianity, creative writing, God, Jesus, seasons, spirituality, writing

Winter sunrise.

Cold and dark.

The swirl of deep blue storm clouds rushing across the horizon, framed by bare-branched trees.

It is cold here, southern and wild, in this city positioned on the far edge of the world.

My mind turns to wetlands. Vast expanses of water and grasses, plovers and crows, magpies and ibis. Dark colours and tangled shadows.

My soul longs to run to the dark, to the shadows, to the continual night beneath the trees: but sunrise breaks through.

Piercing light drives through the heavy clouds.

I cannot escape the light – this yellow, pale winter sun that barely touches the southern lands.

And You are here. I cannot hide from Your presence. You break through the darkness, the clouds, the torments.

Thus I seek to compose my eternal ode to You.

Beginning now, when I struggle to take in the light, when I struggle to stand exposed in the glare, and You meet me here – in the wilderness, in the swamps, of my lonely journey.