Dawn,

The honest sun

Discloses what the night would keep hidden –

A desolate scene,

Etched

In the consciousness

Of a living soldier,

Who prayed,

To see another day.

​

Tick goes the clock and then it tocks,

My feet are warm in fluffy bed socks.

Slippered feet whisper across the floor

There’s a soft click as mum opens the door.

I roll myself over and wake in a wink

As teddy gives me a one eyed blink

I know that the best is yet to come –

The smell of toast and a rumble in my ‘tum.’

Steaming bowls of porridge will be ready to eat

Oh! I do hope I won’t have to find Grannies’ teeth!

Mal Kennington Malone

Mal Kennington Malone

wasn’t good at games.

His classmates always laughed

and called him names:

dumb-chum, drophead,

you silly billy shark –

biggest flapfingers

in Bladestone Park.

I think I’ll try running –

I know I’m not bad.

I could really show ‘em,

he told his Dad.

He trained and trained

around an old dirt track;

he trained every day,

ran to school and back.

He trained and trained

and ran like a hare,

even trained when it rained,

racing everywhere.

When sportsday came,

he was first off the mark,

became the fastest winner

in Bladestone Park.

©Katherine Gallagher

I could never hold the wisdom that this River Red Gum holds

I am simply not big enough, nor will I ever get so old

I sit amongst its roots and accept that I am small

Its branches frame the sky so I don’t have to hold it all

Its waxy leaves they twinkle in the sun and in the rain

They fall and die and rot and then become the tree again

Purple, orange, white, what will the sun paint you today?

While you conduct the life below with the pattern of your shade

Eggs of owls and parrots stowed in your secret nooks and cracks

Then when day meets night you bloom with your erratic flocks of tiny bats

I wish that I was you sometimes, I wish I was so solid

But here I am, a little seed, a mobile hominid (that means human)

I, not so sophisticated, bones wrapped up in skin

I leak, I break, I tear, I burn, I can’t grow back a limb!

I cannot sit so still to ride the Earth around its axis

But sitting still and wisdom are two things that I can practice