I’ve loved words as long as I can remember. I luxuriated in the long ones, swooned to those that let me smell or hear what someone else did, and eagerly ran away with those that led me to other realities. Books were where I lived as a child, usually reading on the floor with my legs in the air.

So it’s not a surprise that in the end I’ve become a writer; I was always following that thread of a dream, among my passions for theatre, insects, rocks and fossils. Now I’ve published over a hundred books, both fiction and non-fiction, and over twenty plays, both my own original ideas and adaptations of fairy tales, those keepers of the wisdom and values of a society, whispered around fires and winding into the ears of children.

And poetry? That’s what comes when we feel deeply, or when the world outside surprises us with a sudden gift, or takes us right out of ourselves. I can recognise the feeling of a poem on its way: the sharpness of attention, the gathering of words and images, the need to wait, still, while the phrases gather and crystallise. These creations aren’t always perfect, but they are always a joy to give birth to, because you know that you’re creating something new. I publish my poems in The School Magazine, in books, on my website and as email tags. Like seeds, they need to scatter – and perhaps take root in someone else’s mind.

Find out more about my work at www.wendyblaxland.com, or the website created for my work with one of my daughters, creating plays to bring history alive: http://blaxlandanddaughter.com/ .

And here’s a fistful of poems:

Passionfruit Baby

Dad was minding the baby, but
Dad had a lot to do.
So the baby escaped to the pantry
and found something tasty to chew.

We’d just picked the passionfruit harvest;
the bucket sat there on the floor
Our baby loved fruit so he tried them:
then he bit and he nibbled and tore.

Dad came to look for the baby;
he found a satisfied child
surrounded by all of the empties –
and golly, did Mum go wild.

The kid needed plenty of changing –
Dad’s turn – he made not a squeak.
But our baby’s sweet skin and his kisses
smelt of passionfruit all the next week!

© Wendy Blaxland

Three plump pumpkins

Three plump pumpkins
sit proud on the kitchen bench,
the seeds of next summer hidden inside their green bellies.
Sun-golden soup to warm us in winter, fragrant with nutmeg. Mmmm.

© Wendy Blaxland

Dinosaur

This morning I saw a living dinosaur.
Suddenly there on the side of our pool
A water dragon stood still,
no movement to betray it.

If you wish to know how dinosaurs looked,
use your eyes now:
head held high,
leathery skin glowing black, silver, reddish brown,
curved claws,
alert eye
and the sense of energy waiting to be unleashed,
all there, right now,
in its small descendant.
The rough sandstone had changed to flesh.

The head lowers, legs flex,
tail slithers and it’s gone.
Did the Jurassic really just come to life?

© Wendy Blaxland