Synapse

 

the opinions are debatable

the opportunities, relatable

opuses, untranslatable

 

many works make hands light

 

the essences are visible

the assonances, visceral

assurances, valuable

 

do tomorrow what today are put-offs

 

the technologies are indefatigable

the technicalities, manageable

tectonics, unfathomable

 

a stitch in time is a joy forever

 

the mornings are synapses

the meanings, perhapses

moanings, collapses

 

invention is the necessity of mother

 

the needs are elementary

the names, ultraordinary

notes, unnecessary

 

a smell by any other name would be rose

 

the concepts are containers

the suspects, entertainers

intercepts, no-brainers

 

a bird in the hand is worth a song untold

 

the outbursts are personal

the outings, natural

outlooks, universal

 

many a true word is spoken in anger

 

the expressions are prodigious

the experiments, indigenous

experiences, religious

 

the harder they fall the bigger the splash

 

the landscapes are supersonic

the soundscapes, symphonic

dreamscapes, chronic

 

a doctor a day keeps the apple away

 

the guests are elegant

the gooses, grandiloquent

ghosts, eloquent

 

never judge a book by its reviewer

 

the diaries are delirious

the dailies, weariness

deaths, serious

 

familiarity breeds content

 

the journeys are mystical

the journals, physical

jobs, statistical

 

variety is the life of spice

 

the constructions are sound

the instructions, round

destructions, found

 

a day was not built in rome

 

the clockworks are enviable

the fireworks, extinguishable

roadworks, interminable

 

don’t feed the hand that bites you

 

the industries are blameful

the machineries, unmindful

solarities, beautiful

 

strike while several irons are in the fire

 

the syllables are synchronous

the symbols, mountainous

sighs, fabulous

 

rolling moss gathers on the stone

 

the calculations are precise

the populations, outsize

regulations, revised

 

a thousand words is worth a picture

 

 

Image: The Hill of Content Bookshop moves up Bourke Street, Melbourne, July 2025.

 

 

 

 

 

July

 

“wye july haiku”

 

*of droplet thread rising stream

waterfall

off leaf stone ledge fern frond pool

 

*fire stump frills brief rainbow

rosella

and another on seed hunt

 

*renaissance earplug drops of

spotify

daybreak’s mist trickling window

 

*kindling powder redgum dust

fireplace

morning’s level playing field

 

*corrugated ripples ring

water tank

wherein deep waters run still

 

*white smoke drifts above gully

rainwater

reflects on decking glistens

 

*smoothest mud wettest leaf where

echidna

spiralled a ball of a time

 

*curvy cloudy sky tingling

eucalypts

claw boulder underground creak

 

*gravel grip vehicle climbs

boulevarde

then again birdcall silence

 

*bolstered balustraded bold

weekenders

pop corks watch screens have a doze

 

*green neck torsion straightened

king parrot

black claw precision ambles

 

*treetop crests waving miles meet

horizon

permanent marker sea line

 

*cold elongated grassy

watercourse

old unsung storm-drain the sea

 

*dropdown seaviews wildweeds up

no-through-road

chorus raucous cockatoos

 

*water everywhere high tide

erosion

bark hangings drip from branches

 

*guttering froth blowholes gasp

salt water

returns thunder against reef

 

*uncontained sky white grey blue

container

uncontained sea grey blue green

 

 

 

 

 

 

Neighbour

 

Iso-mandala No. 152 (October 2020)

 Neighbour 

Reflections for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, the 13^th of July 2025, in the pew notes at St Peter’s Church, Eastern Hill, Melbourne.  Written by Philip Harvey. 

Americans have been in the news lately. Their Vice President, a self-proclaimed recent convert to Catholicism, has shared his ideas about who is our neighbour. "There is a Christian concept,” he contends, “that you love your family and then you love your neighbour, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world." This concentric, even solipsistic, vision of our relationship with others went viral, with many prompt and effective antidotes soon on offer for such a virus. 

Perhaps, like the lawyer in today’s story of the Good Samaritan, the Veep wanted to justify himself. Hard to say. In his hierarchy of compassion, a neighbour appears to be someone who lives next door. Loving such a person would be more important than loving anyone else in the community, or the general vicinity, to follow his logic. Charity begins at home, but doesn’t seem to leave the front gate. Priority is given to ‘fellow citizens’, which we construe to mean Americans but not Canadians, or other people. Way down the list is “the rest of the world”, which is a lot of people, including the Good Samaritan. After all, he is the other, outside the pale, the one no one mentions.

 Meanwhile, another American has recently been proclaimed the head of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Leo XIV, when this worldview was declared last January, took no time rebuking the recent convert, albeit as simply one Robert Prevost: ”Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.” He provided a link to Pope Francis’ response to the statement, written in the first instance to his bishops: “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups.” Francis said that the true ordo amoris must be informed by meditation on the parable of the Good Samaritan and built as “a fraternity open to all, without exception.” 

 Viral means thousands of words, good, bad and indifferent. While the common sense in Luke’s parable, in the New Revised Standard Version, takes a small 289 words. It is Jesus who inverts our conditioned thinking. The two who would, you’d think, rescue the victim and care for him, don’t; while the one who should not, even must not, does. Which is where we might find ourselves, any one of these characters, heading off down our own Jericho road.   

Simplicity

 Image by B. Harvey

 

[Simplicity]

 

“To be very unobtrusive, and very insignificant, always striving for more simplicity.” (Etty Hillesum, April 1942)

 

to be very attentive

and very near, listening

even when at some distance

 

to leave out the extras

and the showy quotes,

to say what needs being said

 

to contribute in your own words

joining all other words in passing

regardless of signature

 

to refrain from grand gestures

and general namedropping

by keeping to the point

 

to set aside every machine

and all their screens and links

and learn to breathe

 

to stop before your inner mood

to register that others too

endure such moods alone

 

to recognise tensions

their sources and hold back

deescalate, dwell and wait

 

to walk very carefully

to belong in the landscape

and observe all things closely

 

to learn when not to speak

when to bite the tongue

and when from talk to stop