Andrew Lansdown: Five new poems

So Far South

They must travel
south across America,
the Canada geese,
to reach their winter
home where they
will pair and nest.

I too must travel
south, so far south
that I must pass
through the north
of the southern
hemisphere to reach

the place my heart
has never left,
the lower west
of Australia where
my lifelong mate
and home await.

Andrew Lansdown

The Bodhisattva’s Bib
Jizō, guardian of the souls of miscarried and aborted children

i
Instead of her child,
she ties the cloth bib around
the worn Jizō stone.

ii
Flat now, her tummy—
like the weathered stone Jizō
she’s dressing in red.

iii
Never to know yuck—
the bib she has tied around
the stone Jizō’s neck.

iv
Unlike the colour
of the bib the sun will leach—
her unfading grief.

Andrew Lansdown

Bamboo Triptych

1
Weather-Wasted

How light the sun-split
pieces of bamboo have become
since first they were cut:
whoever would have supposed
that sap could be so heavy?

2
Aerosol Airs

Spraying ants nesting
inside the sawn bamboo tubes,
I’m surprised by sighs
mellow and mournful as notes
from Zen shakuhachi flutes.

3
Little Logs

Splitting with dryness,
these bamboo pieces I’ve sawn.
Yet, scattered or piled,
they’re so imbued with beauty
I can hardly bear to burn them.

Andrew Lansdown

Gleam

The water pooled
in the stone bowl

has on its skin
a scarlet gleam

from a nearby
paper lantern

and in its depths
several goldfish

upon whose scales
the gleam gathers.

Andrew Lansdown

A Game of Anything

I am watching two little girls
like ducklings tottering

in line behind their mother—
only, they are making a game

of the going, taking care
with wing-flappings for balance

to keep in the lanky shadow
she is casting on the asphalt

as she trundles her trolley
in the late afternoon sunlight

through the shopping-centre carpark.

Andrew Lansdown