Cameron Lowe lives in Geelong. A collection of his poetry, Porch Music, will be published by Whitmore Press in 2010. He is currently a postgraduate student at The University of Melbourne.
 
 
 
 
 
The Watcher
 
Under such graceful instruction
the surge of coral roses
in the vase
 
releases the porcelain lady
to be all that she can be,
Autumn days sliding over
 
the quiet child’s angel face—
he who watches
and watches in the drifting light.
 
So the morning is shaped
with a certain wonder,
sunlight joyfully
 
playing across green water,
seagulls ascending into a sky
of polished glass,
 
the quarter moon still hanging,
like a child’s charm,
over the silence of the house.
 
 
Soap Bark
 
Bees have made this tree their home—
through the pale June sunlight
they come and go, their dancing
flight a performance of belief,
an unbidden faith leading
them back to the hive.
The bee, to be, does not need
to know the inner bark
of the tree can be lathered
into soap, nor that the people
of the Andes, in Chile,
use extracts from Soap Bark
to treat the sick.
Bees do not make poems
out of trees.
 
 
A Sunday
 
The day is beautiful
                        Gig Ryan
 
The church cars have gone—
this empty street needs you.
Clouds gather in the west,
bitumen drinks the sun
and everything is slow;
the dog deeply sleeping.
Tomorrow there are bills
to pay, a house to plaster,
but this stillness lingers
in the naked limbs of trees,
on the green and yellow grass.
This empty street needs you—
its sun-drenched gardens,
its music of cars.