Knitting on The Frankston Line

Swaying on the cracked leather seat of the old red-rattler*, 

clickety clacking along the Frankston Line,

knee to knee with fellow passengers 

trying awkwardly not to touch or intrude on their space.

Tedious, irritating commuting.

Then watching with fascination, a garment growing.  

Rhythmic knitting, rhythmic swaying.

She’s untroubled with the jolting stops and starts between stations.

Content in creating.

Bringing something into being from a strand of yarn, unfurling from her bag.

Day after day I watched it grow.

Now, I too create and often pause to watch in wonder the single strand of yarn evolving, impossibly, into something new.

*a red rattler is a train which used to run on the Melbourne rail network. They were uncomfortable, the windows never seemed to close properly, but they had style!

A drabble is a story told in 100 words. No more. No less.

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Springtime birdsong

By five am
birds stir in their slumber,
restless with the merest hint of pre dawn light.

Begin to cough away the threads of sleep;
remember their designated song and hesitantly give voice in a desultory way.

Rainbow Lorikeet

Some time later, a full throated cacophony wakens me fully -
seamlessly evolves into a more harmonious chorus
rising and falling as more and more birds join in, like a well rehearsed springtime orchestra.

Little corella

The full throated warbling of a lone magpie is my favourite this week - he’ll hop to the back door later in the morning and treat me to a private serenade.

Magpie

A Drabble is a story told in 100 words. No more. No less.

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what have we become?

We’ve pursued wealth and have become greedy with excess.
We’ve sought power and have become brutish and aggressive.

We’ve chosen to play with shifting goal posts on an uneven playing field.
To our advantage
of course.

Sold our country's soul to the highest bidders.
Ignored common sense in our quest for ‘growth at all costs’
And what a cost it is - living on borrowed time,
But the borrowing will need to be repaid … with interest … soon.

We’ve chosen to ignore wisdom and generosity of spirit.
But Christmas is coming, let’s be jolly and pretend all is well -
Noel.

South Australia. Open cut coal mines.
photos: D. Abbott.

The Australian Government has voted to sell uranium to India - because we sell it to China. Neither country has signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (saying they won't use the uranium for aggressive purposes). 


We're mining black and brown coal and shipping it (mainly to China) to help fill their increasing energy needs. Soon, some of this shipping will be through the fragile, stressed Great Barrier Reef, taking coal-seam gas to China. We don't invest enthusiastically in renewable energy to prepare for the time when the earth has nothing left to give. 


We watch with idle curiosity while some of our Island neighbours watch their homelands get consumed by the rising seas. IMHO we seem to be taking one step forward and many backward.


We used to call ourselves "The Lucky Country" - I wonder when our luck will run out.


What do you think?




A drabble is a story told in 100 words. No more, no less.
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on acupuncture

Like an echidna I lie,
sprouting carefully placed, quill-like needles,
quivering with minute electrical impulses.
---
Dirty brown coal, heavily polluting and subsidised obscenely,
originates from open-cut mine,  powering generators in far off LoyYang.
Its product travels across the state in lethal, ropey wires -
would annihilate anyone coming into contact
by accident
or design.

Channelled into ever-smaller increments to be used here for nurturing and healing.

Alligator clips attached to fine needles settle into my tense, troubled muscles.
Delicate, rhythmic pulsing lulls me to sleep.
Enfolded in tender warmth, muscles gratefully absorb this strange experience,
to be refreshed and healed -
painlessly.


* A Drabble is a story told in 100 words. No more, no less.

**Thanks to giftlog.com for the photo. They also have other free photos of a variety of Australian animals. Link here.
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A Drabbly Twittery thing

This thing titled Twitter, was tempting in two thousand and ten, but I turned away;
no tolerance for tawdry tittle-tattle.
Seemed to be for tools and temptresses, trumpeting their tantalising treats to toadying troops with trite remarks and toxic tirades - transformed tranquillity to a need for tranquilisers and therapy.

Time passed.
No longer trivialised.
A twinge of envy for the aficionado’s ability to tweet trillingly, tapping out taut messages like a timpani.

Will I be able to traverse the tricky, twittery trail without falling into a trap?
Training wheels attached!
Now to transform this trajectory into tentative, tweety things.

***
A Drabble is a story told in 100 words. No more, no less.

Of course I couldn't resist sharing some birds 

depicting different styles of Tweeting!

Magpie - sharing joyous harmonies

Pelican - can be awkward, but is quirkily attractive

Brahminy Kite - a loner, focused, soaring free

Little Corellas - flocking gibberish -
can't hear a single voice over the collective noise

Kookaburra - premeditated

Rainbow Lorikeet - focused on sweetness

Chookies! - produce something wholesome every day 

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Australian White Ibis

I always thought they were ugly birds, loud, clumsy. Long beak stabbing into urban grass to extract buggy, tasty morsels;

but sitting by the Brisbane River, enjoying my lunchtime picnic during the Happiness conference, observe with 'mindful' seeing eyes.

Saw instead of gangly awkwardness, a beautiful bird, bright eyed, with delicate plumes and elegant beak, displaced from its natural habitat of swamps and wetlands, suffering from the devastating effects of drought and flood, unable to forage there for insects, and other creepy crawlies. Makes the most of a lazy feed of picnic scraps. Leave their poop

and own this space.

A Drabble is a story told in 100 words. No more, no less.

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Peace shattered

Unfathomable act of dreadful violence sends shock waves ricocheting around the globe

to settle in a far off land. Grieving, loving, thoughts are sent back,
helpless to do otherwise but be with you in spirit.

This vicious act rips at the face of fragile, precious peace. Beauty and young lives violated, a chilling nightmare for all concerned and all watching; horrified, sickened, repulsed.

---

No knee-jerk reaction.
Shaken and shattered - yes, but wise counsel still; calm and measured. A way to respond to terror without resort to heated passion and vengeance.

A beacon of hope in this troubled world.

Thankyou Norway.

East Side Gallery. Berlin.

a Drabble is a story told in 100 words. No more no less.
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Common Heath aka 'pretty pink flowers'

Insignificant plant, unfriendly with its spiky, scratchy, sneaky, sharp leaves.

Just the right height to scrape at summer-bare legs, and drop dry leaves into gaiters and socks,
to work their way down into well laced boots,
irritating, itchy, till you stop and empty them out …

time after time.

Some might call Victoria’s floral emblem almost boring

“Common Heath”- an uninspiring, ho hum name for a lackluster plant.

Comes into its own in winter coastal heathlands;
extrudes buds from spindly twig-like stems.
Small tubular flowers - white, pale pink, rose, crimson. Brighten the drab winter bushland with bursts of glorious colour.









a Drabble is a story told in 100 words. No more, no less.

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Morning glory at Cooloothin

Kookaburra perches, alert, on the lone buffalo horn.*

Keen, silent, watchful.
Swoops suddenly.
Beak clacks as he wheels back to his morning haunt to whack and gulp a tasty morsel, recently living, already changing form to become his source of energy.

Whip birds crack.

The morning birdsong fills the air, rises to a crescendo that for a while becomes deafening.

In the distance, sunlight begins to creep.
Pauses momentarily.
Jumps.
Zig-zags tree to tree.
Illuminates trunk upon trunk; advancing in fits and starts.
Pauses again, then leaps across the nearby creek, gathers momentum and continues its inexorable advance.

Welcome Warmth!

Is this my best angle?

Or this?

Sunlight catching the trees through louvered windows

The sun seems to leap across the creek in the mornings.

*I can't believe I forgot to take a photo of the kookaburra on breakfast watch.

a Drabble is a story told in 100 words. No more. No less.

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Blog break activities: Royal National Park

Small green patch shimmers, peacock coloured in the glaring sun.

The wood duck unaware of imminent danger pecks happily at grubs in the grass. A sea eagle soars, a mere speck far in the blue sky.

A shriek of alarm stirs the birds from their grazing, they scatter frantically to seek sanctuary from the predator. The duck, temporarily blinded, takes off with gusto. Then careens headlong, heavily into the tin shed with a loud thump. The sound reverberates through the campground.
Crashes heavily to the ground.
Appears dead ...
staggers, dazed, confused and tries again, more successfully.

Safe for the timebeing.

Sulphur Crested Cockatoo ruffled because we wouldn't share bikkies and cheese.

Royal National Park

Ferry to Cronulla

Rainbow Lorikeet checking that it's safe to emerge

***
A Drabble is a story told in 100 words. No more. No less.

*Blog break activities on the trip to the Happiness and its Causes conference in Brisbane June 2011. You can read about the conference here.
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The journey to Happiness: Waves

Argumentative waves

antagonistic; at odds with each other and the world, fight their way to shore. Push and elbow others aside for supremacy.

In their race to win they fling aside tendrils of spray; shovel mounds of sand from ocean floor to add weight to their angry bluster. Yellow now and murky, they jostle and elbow aside smaller kin, devour, then attack the shore with ferocious assault.

A pair of pied oyster-catchers probe for food, oblivious to their apparent peril, delicate at the water’s edge.

Footsteps, one pair horse-shoe heeled, the other spine ribbed, weave companionably along the desolate sands.

***
A drabble is a story told in 100 words. No more. No less.

Photos taken at the Bongil Bongil National Park NSW on the road trip to the Happiness and its Causes conference in Brisbane June 2011.
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Beauty and waste

Lazy waves lack the energy to break with any enthusiasm. Lethargic and purposeless, barely shift minute grains of sand.

They flop to shore and pause as if to survey the scene. Slide, exhausted back down the sandy shore. Too much effort to make a break and stand out from their lacklustre mates gently forming behind.

A shark egg, shiny black and spiky, clung to seaweed.

Sharks, a life form being plundered and slaughtered as if expendable. Fins a delicacy, sliced from living flesh, the bodies still writhing, flung aside, count for naught, to drown and sink.

Mass extinctions closer daily.

***
Link to an article on the frightful impact that humans are having on the oceans here. In a nutshell overfishing and pollution remove the conditions needed for fish to survive in many of our earth's oceans. At all.

We'll be left with algaes and possibly jellyfish.

The seas provide up to a 1/4 of the world's protein - that's a huge amount to kill off in our lifetime. Scientists expected this to happen in the lifetimes of our children or grandchildren (and won't they thank us for this willful destruction) but it's happening now. It's like there's some kind of mass, worldwide amnesia (wrong word, but I can't think of the correct one) happening, or do we as a species want to kill ourselves off?

A drabble is a story told in 100 words. No more. No less.
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Blog break activities - Thurra National Park

The steady "thuk, thuk," of fat, lazy drops of rain,
flopping, lethargic on the tent awning,
unhurried, yet wetly persistent; fall from overhanging leaves and limbs.

The swift flap, swoosh, of the black currawong’s wings
come to peruse our camping supplies.
Well-sealed containers, transparent, tease the birds.
An empty promise of tantalising goodies.

Claws scrabble ineffectually; it’s a pointless exercise. We won’t feed them; encourage dependence and disease. Eyes bright, accusing, they fly off, defeated.

Mozzies buzz; keen to feed - undeterred by rain and cold.

Think of friends touring Europe, the art and culture,
crowds and queues,

and feel content.

After the rain.
Thurra National Park. North East Victoria.

Thurra National Park. 

Exploding watermelons.

Food for thought:

It’s easy to forget
the weather that caused havoc for farmers across our land; cyclone Yasi, the droughts and floods

Customers concerned with the price of fruit and nit picking about imperfections.

 If we think at all, imagine everything is back to normal for those affected.

ignore the distance our food has travelled

Oranges from California. Durian from Thailand

News of exploding watermelons in China.

Picture from here

If you’re struggling and poor, how tempting to hurry nature along!

Tampering backfires. Crops ruined.

Are our farmers here supported adequately
To enable them to be patient and let crops grow healthily?

***

A Drabble is a story told in 100 words. No more. No less.

Photo captures from ABC news.

Z. Zero

Zac was a zealous student, interested in Zionism and Zoroastrianism. Sadly he could remember zilch, zip and zero about spelling. The last letter of the Western alphabet; a metaphor for his life: a big fat Z. He longed for the sizzling zing of success. But he zipped his mouth with this score.

Zac wanted to zoom into oblivion. He felt like a zombie, totally zonked.

He belonged in a zoo for freaks, had no zest for life. He’d have to zig-zag out of the school yard zone to avoid the zap of the bullies who had zero tolerance for difference.

A Drabble is a story told in 100 words. No more, no less.

Cheers!  :D

I'll be back Monday to wrap up with Lee at Tossing it Out who has generously devoted so much time to hosting the A-Z Blogging Challenge this April.

Over at traverselife, I've spent the month looking at different aspects of bullying.
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Y. Yolanda's yacht.

Yolanda would be able to read the message on the Frankston pier - no worries!

I’ve got a young friend named Yolanda, she yearned for a yellow yacht and last year bought one from a Japanese gentleman for a lot of Yen. They celebrated with bottles of Yellingbow and a hunk of yearling on the barbeque.

Yellow yacht at Flinders, moored for Easter.

Yolanda named the yacht “YIPPEE!”

Yolanda yodels enthusiastically. Some of the crew – all youths - say it sounds more like the yelp of a yak, and use the work “Yuk”. Yolanda says it helps her yank more strongly on the yardarm, though a yeoman of yesteryear may give her a run for her money and yield a better result.

Yellow yacht and motor boat at Flinders last week. Yippee indeed!

Yachts at Mornington. Very low Easter tide.

Here tomorrow: Zero


A Drabble is a story told in 100 words. No more, no less.

Over at traverselife, I've spent the month looking at different aspects of bullying.
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X. Dr Xing

It could be a bit extreme, but I suspect Doctor Xing will be prescribing more Xanax to treat depression in Gen X. Many of that generation are exhausted by tying to learn to play the xylophone; some even wanted to travel to Xanadu for extra lessons! Most people would just use the Xerox to copy the instructions rather than travel exhausting amounts of kilometres to somewhere on the map where “x” marks the spot. That’s a bit exaggerated don’t you think?

Just between you and me, Doctor Xing is a little strange, he signs his prescriptions with an inexact ‘x’.

A Drabble is a story told in 100 words. No more, no less.
This Drabble in no way represents any person I know and I trust that anyone with a similar name will accept the words in a lighthearted way. I had to find something to fit with X and am scraping the bottom of my brain barrel here - I have a deep and long lasting respect for my Chinese friends, workmates and neighbours.

Here tomorrow: Yolanda's yacht

Over at traverselife, I'm spending the month looking at different aspects of bullying.
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