Objects

 

[April]

 

“haiku april object”

 

emptied of undreamt refuse

wheelie bins

left yawning in dawning streets

 

pop-up theatre of old

roller-door

plays morning’s mini-drama

 

shorts or pants shoes or sandals

cardigan

or not the day cold or hot?

 

perhaps install white wooden

venetian

blinds on sun-facing windows

 

autumn comes early to the

computer

upgrades downloads old versions

 

train faces silent in thought

audio

wired to pocket podcasts

 

rushed some give a second glance

clocktower

but most don’t have a minute

 

tradies make up new storeys

scaffolding

comes to grips with construction

 

bike helmets walking frames ring

ceramic

coffee cups at street cafés

 

the present moment includes

cameras

distracting from the present

 

the pope dies elections pass

newspapers

flatten their worlds to an inch

 

prune plum-trees to improve heat

reduction

of buildings and the spring buds

 

so much depends upon the

secateurs

left in the old wheelbarrow

 

95% rain meets

overheads

runs then drops to long dry earth

 

night reads too much into the

standard lamp

window glowing in darkness

 

unfixed constellations of

satellites

leave transitory flight charts

 

dreaming so far that even

eiderdown

is faraway memory

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saoirse

 

[Saoirse]

 

Our new cat has arrived at home.

She’s hiding behind the couch.

Saoirse.

 

Circe is not right.

She is not Circe

Or Saucy or Sauces. Sushi, no.

 

Pronounced Shirr Sea,

like rain on the ocean

making easy silken designs.

 

“Shirr Sea,” we practise

on the friendly side of the couch,

“Shirr Sea, here’s a bowl of water.”

 

Irish as it happens

and it happens with some regularity

wedged behind the couch, purring.

 

Addressed Sir She,

as you would a lady possessed

of the demeanour of lord of the manor.

 

She is white with ginger markings

off the streets her papers say

and only one year old

 

landed on her feet

but for now sweet mews from the couch.

Her thoroughly Irish name means Freedom

 

“Like Saoirse Ronan -

you know, ‘Little Women’!”

“Um vaguely yes of course.”

 

One day fearless she’ll be lord of the manor

walk soft as rain on sea

but on Day Two she’s behind the couch.

Resurrection

 

Detail of 'Resurrection, Cookham' (1924-27)

Sir Stanley Spencer, held at Tate Britain, London.

 

Reflections for Easter Day, the 20^th of April 2025, in the pew notes at St Peter’s Church, Eastern Hill, Melbourne.  Written by Philip Harvey.

 

Today Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) is one of England’s most celebrated artists. Like so many English people, Spencer lived virtually his entire life in one place, in his case the village of Cookham, upstream from London. He described the place as “possessed by a sacred presence.” Here he used his inimitable artistic gifts to depict Cookham through an understanding of his favourite reading: the Bible in the Authorised Version. ‘Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta’ is one of his masterpieces. Another, ‘Resurrection, Cookham’, was acquired by Tate Britain in 1927. He turned the Victorian ‘conversation piece’ painting into a visionary and very personal revelation of Scripture, his lived environment, and those he knew in everyday life.

 The Resurrection recurs as a preferred subject throughout his life. The Resurrection is happening where you find yourself. In the Tate painting, the villagers rest or rise or stand in the church graveyard, dressed and in appearance as they were in the day, in the artist’s own memory, some of them standing literally in their graves. Surprise, bafflement, wonder, amazement, disbelief are responses to the vast image, but then what is the right response to seeing resurrection? The artist appears to be saying, this is what you do feel at such times. One observer has said Spencer had little sense of hierarchy: everything is a creation of God. Another recalled him saying some gallery visitors “become angry because his ‘Resurrection’s don’t look like their ideas about the Resurrection.”  Which rather begs the question of what does it look like? His painting, for all its unusual manner, creates an immense sense of peace. Although viewers recognize many of the traumas and challenges of Spencer’s own life writ large in the people portrayed, here in the churchyard there is a powerful sense of reconciliation and belonging. It is a painting that invites prolonged contemplation, even over a lifetime.

 Related to this exemplary Christian action in art, Stanley Spencer was also a kind of self-appointed lay preacher. Biographers tell countless stories of Spencer talking at length to anyone about Bible passages, at any time of the day or night. Understanding residents of Cookham are recorded as having every reaction to his extended exegeses, the underwhelming, whelming, and overwhelming. It was a great day to be alive. Blessedly, we can all take time today to be whelmed by his sermons on canvas and paper, prolific, inspiring, and original as they are. Spencer puts us in the way of seeing our own world in all of its immediacy, drama, and uniqueness.