Anne Elvey and Best Australian Poems 2010

Today I treated myself to some delights, including reading my newest book of poetry, Best Australian Poems 2010, immersed in the words and feeling my mind drifted into a world of feelings and perceptions of those such as Bruce Dawe, Lisa Gorton, Josephine Rowe, Claire Gaskin (my favourite poet!), just to name a few.  Today I discovered Anne Elvey, who I have just fallen in love with.  Not only a poet she also is a researcher, with interest in ecological ethics and cultural change. Below is one of her poems included in Best Australian Poems 2010.  This inspired my own poem (thats coming!) still working on it.  Today I was blessed......

A passenger from the childhood house
The sheen on things under blue
and the cool acreage of canary
light has not a hint of crimson

with the idea of sky over the bay.
Save tomorrow, the poster says,
from things that eat organs, things
that multiply in vessels, cells
skimming the venous and arterial
roads. (The careful knife
under the skin prises, cleaving
the old idea and the good)
Nanna can smell the rain
coming; she scents the hunger
of the soil. When my surfaces are raw
and ragged, like a tree shedding,
I wander in memory. The past
tastes bitter and lovely
(don't stitch me up too soon)
the flame tree blooms
blood in the childhood yard.
A mask slips. Forgiveness
is neither random nor chosen.
New rain yaps on the roof,
the wipers scatter recollection,
intermittent with the light. Grace
throws itself into my lap
and licks my face. When it lands
on me, what can I do but laugh
at once wary and delighted.