[Today I’m pleased to present three new poems by Australian poet Rebecca Kylie Law. The poems were submitted to The Afternoon Journal and are published for the first time. Please note the copyright: All rights reserved.]
For St Francis of Paola, Hermit
In the afternoon becoming night,
noticing small ribbed shells
the shape of petals, reminding
myself not to pick them up
for the inconvenience of not
returning home directly, I looked
instead at the silhouettes
of two figures standing on the precipice
of a granite rock jutting
out just as the bay curves
round to invisibility. It
seemed strange that in the
approaching dusk their shadows
had already been cast head
to foot. And then jumping feet
first into the water, their
arms flailing, daylight returning
to their calves, stomaches, then in it’s
entirety. A sleep forgotten.
Later that night, my mind
in the woods of Schumann, his
lonely blue flowers and yellowing
Autumn, I lay my head
on a freshly laundered pillow,
a grey loose weave rug about
my shoulders and drew my
hands together, the tips of my
fingers to my lips. You never grow out
of owls. Their wide-eyed blinks and
moist irises, their round steady pupils,
the swoon of their beaks from a high tree
and half-smiles. “Ne m’oubliez pas”
in our prayers, “ne m’oubliez pas”.
— by Rebecca Kylie Law
Whilst the Hourglass
Here
birthdays come
as the practise song
of anonymous birds;
and day is the almost
blue of sky.
The brother or the sister-
They have turned older
in another Capital
and I am waking to the memory
of tandem bicycles or mini-
frights in surfacing the waves.
Last night, walking
down the street
behind my flat
I looked for the first
time at the rooms
of my neighbours
lit up in strong lamplight
and I felt as though
I was rambling over
love. Then tonight
the idylls of birds
still anonymous, air-
bound, a paling sky
before the true darkness
and candy striped candles
that light up a face.
I tie you a ribbon.
— by Rebecca Kylie Law
Excerpt From The Secret
My dreams have no land
though seem peopled
as flowers grow in this
manner of sporadicity:
Myself within and once
a cloud wide as rectangles
can be, was It –
then a clamouring of forms
not distinct as bodies
gathered about like the
flowers again, for their petals
(which was really, better
to love and be loved
forever mindful, these nights
of cloud-kissing, how it
truly epitomises the making
of a scene). In the beatitude.
— by Rebecca Kylie Law
(Editor’s Note: Poems copyrighted © 2014 Rebecca Kylie Law. All rights reserved.)
Rebecca Kylie Law is a Sydney based poet, essayist and reviewer. Published by Picaro Press, her poetry collections include “Offset”, “Lilies and Stars” and “The Arrow & The Lyre”. Other publications include thewonderbook of poetry, Notes for The Translators, Poems for the Young Chinese Adult, Best Poem Journal, Virgogray Press, Australian Love Poems 2013, Southerly, Westerly, Rochford Street Press, The Australian, The Euroscientist Ezine, Poetry Pacific and The Lake. She holds a Masters Degree in Poetry from Melbourne University.
