Catching the Light

Catching the Light

Suzanee Edgar

Catching the Light

ISBN 978 1 76041 737 6

Copyright © text Suzanne Godwin Edgar 2019

Front cover photo: Peter Edgar

Author photo: Judith Crispin

All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. Requests for permission should be sent to the publisher at the address below.

First published 2019 by

Ginninderra Press

PO Box 3461 Port Adelaide 5015

www.ginninderrapress.com.au

Contents

This healing light

Where two walls meet

True minds

Watchers

For want of a spoon

Water sleekly falls

Notes

Acknowledgements

About the Author

For my father, Charles E. Blake Godwin

This healing light

Starshine: double vision

‘Then we came forth, to see again the stars’ – Dante, Inferno, Canto 139

When walking by the lake one wintry night

I paused at a bend in the path to watch the lights

from lamps along the bay’s farther shore:

I hadn’t seen them quite that way before,

like one of van Gogh’s painted starry nights.

Although our town is not a place he might

have dreamt: the lake, the quiet little bay,

here were the same reflected lights at play.

I pictured him working, alone beside the Rhône,

his stiff and spattered hands both chilled to the bone.

Saw cobalt, ultramarine and Prussian blues

as I stood there and stared, comparing views.

I've always loved his shining starlit nights

but never thought the real could be as bright.

Now I choose that path whenever I can

and pause, to honour that unhappy man.

His was a troubled life, he died too soon

yet still his brush has lit my scene: no moon

just water, lamps and stars; their sprinkled light

so festive on a frosty cloudless night.

Klimt in the courtyard: woman in gold

Glittering down the tree,

sunlight on the leaves

is a drift of yellow coins,

a work of art to see

as if the slender tree

were a woman dressed in gold

dazzling the soirée

with stylish artistry.

Compositions in a cold climate

A warm reddish glow

from letters on the novel’s spine

echoes tassels of a crimson throw

sprawled across the couch.

The daisies’ hot yellow

bursts from its blue vase

to meet a scene of autumn willows

within its frame on the wall.

Little brown jugs in a row

on the kitchen dresser shelf,

homely creatures, and slow,

amble along for milking.