Ode to Waves

I do not live by the seaside,


but in you, waves, I have faith.

In your break and splash, in your rise and ruin,

I hear the words: It hardly matters.



I admire your practiced approach.

Sometimes you don your grey uniform,

sometimes you wear the green one with the shining buttons.

You calculate perfectly, and always with ease.



I once hired an Argentine plasterer who reminded me of you.

He spoke of long lunches with other tradesmen, at makeshift tables,

with local wine, and a radio always at his side.



You, waves, who trade junk and real estate with dry land,

you never stop to ponder the deal you are getting.



And what if days of work drafting up a heavy swell

should come to nothing?

You simply shrug your shoulders and take a welcome spell .

Tomorrow

Already, tomorrow is stitching itself together.

Right now, it is busy flicking through a case of lenses.

There is still time left for it to burn a few old canvases,

to thaw out a woolly mammoth,

to toss a few old lamp fonts into the tip.

You long to tell it that you yourself are not quite ready 

(a cello sleeps in the corner, kindness sleeps in your heart)

but what does tomorrow care if you have fallen behind!

Here, look through this crack in the wall:

see how tomorrow just throws us an unpuzzled glance, 

spits in its hands,

and shakes out another patchwork landscape.

Counselling for the Stressed and the Alienated

If you live in a street for long enough, you eventually come to know most of what goes on there. You need not be a detective, nor a gossip, nor even the neighbourly type. Local knowledge has a knack of finding its way to you, so long as you stick around.

On the corner at the end of my street, just two doors up from the house where the baby died last summer, is a particularly neat and well maintained double story Victorian terrace. It has a bull-nose awning with black iron lattice work that stretches out over the pavement for the full span of the corner. The doors and windows seem freshly painted in a dark burgundy colour, as they have seemed for the last two decades. On both street frontages appear identical small brass plaques that read: R.D.Winston and Associates, Counselling for the Stressed and the Alienated, followed by their phone number and an email address.

I have not actually seen the occupants of the house. On one occasion, however, when I was walking home past the property, I happened to hear them. The lights were shining through the heavily frosted glass of their windows. A John Coltrane album was playing loudly enough for the music to be heard in the street. The song was 'Soul Eyes' - one of my personal favourites - so naturally I paused to listen to it. At the time, I was carrying in each hand a grey plastic bag full of groceries. It was dusk. Other than getting the milk and the sliced ham into the refrigerator at home, I really did not need to be anywhere. I recall feeling the urge to enter the premises and join the occupants, whoever they might be. I felt certain that once inside, I would find a bottle of gin, a bottle of tonic and a bowl of ice on a mahogany sideboard, and two gentle faces discussing something intriguing. 

When the song finished, I came to my senses. I continued on my way home. 

About that house on the corner, there is nothing more that I can add - with the exception of a few facts that may or may not interest you. Given the history of our neighbourhood and the design of the building, we can assume that the house was once a store, or possibly even a hotel. It is said that at one time there was a pub on every street corner in our suburb. The other piece of information that I have for you is not so much fact as speculation. I once overheard two women in the library discussing how R.D.Winston and Associates are just a front. One of the women was saying that the owners of the house dreamed up the counselling service so that they could claim their mortgage repayments on their tax as a business expense. Quite annoyed by the idea that someone would make the effort to erect little brass plaques with the intention of deceiving the tax commissioner, I made up my mind to find out the truth of the matter. Over the course of the next few days, I made several calls to R.D.Winston and Associates, hoping to enquire about making an appointment to receive counselling. I even devised a story about how I was feeling lonely and alienated. But each time I called, nobody answered the phone.  I left a dozen or so messages on their voice mail. Then I sent them emails, but again I received no reply.

For several weeks afterwards, my blood boiled. I lay awake at night imagining them listening to the messages. I imagined that they found relief at the end of a long day, as they cleared the message bank and the email account, laughing and making jokes at the expense of the would-be clients. I decided that this was probably a daily ritual for them, listening to and reading the desperate messages of alienated and stressed people who sought their professional assistance - people who would doubtless be left puzzled and insecure when their calls and their emails were ignored. How could R.D.Winston and Associates - whoever they were - be so callous as to add to the suffering of these unfortunate souls? The more I thought about the cruel scenario, the more compelled I felt to do something about it. 

In the end, I did nothing. To be sure, I stewed over it, and lost sleep, and now I am even writing about it, which, I guess, is tantamount to doing nothing at all. I still live in the same street, just a few minutes walk from that same house. With its little brass plaques and its bullnose verandah, it is still perched up there on the corner, seemingly freshly painted. One day I will find the strength and the courage to knock on their door and demand an explanation. And what if they are to invite me in, offer me a gin and tonic, and start playing a John Coltrane album? Well, in the unlikely event that this happens, I will stand my ground and demand an explanation for their insensitivity.