Brave Men

jayn
December 2021

With peremptory speed
you closed the white, iron gate
between you and me
Conflicted
you raised walls

Open armed, I said
That’s bullshit, my love

You said
That’s all over now
adding gruffly
It’s time to move on

Sometimes bravery is a habit
Tired old words from tired old men
who fear themselves

I opened the other gate
and stepped around your barricades
I hugged you anyway
You didnt hold me with your hands
so I held you with mine gently
conflicted

I whispered
Honey, I still love you

Love is like that

The Log Blog

By Lachlan Ker of Expedite Productions

In mid 2017, hannaTree set out to build a log cabin at Tumbledown Nature Refuge, her home near Stanthorpe in the Granite Belt Qld.

100 callitris logs went into its construction, each 4 – 6m log weighing about 50-80 kg. Every single log and everything else that it takes to build a small cabin in the forest was hauled up hill to the site over a boulder-strewn granite ledge from up to 1km away, on an old furniture trolley. It cost no more than Au$2000 , and the only tools she needed were a small chainsaw, an axe, a hand auger, a water level and a drill.

This is the story of its construction.

Begin

jayn

November 2021

There is emptiness in between

the space where you were

and here 

deep beneath roots and leaves

that took a thousand years to shake off life

and in a final sigh of ash and flame

we dared to fall

We creaked, and grew more layers to seal our wounds

until I, just a gaping pretence

hoped that the axe man would come

to break down burdening wood  and a crumbling heart

to sawdust and splinters

Down here deep

where the creatures crawl and creep and scuttle

between leaves and grass and love

in a universe

that is not just stars and all the space between them

there is a promise

Down here deep I rest

interstitially ensconced 

between threads of white

and grains of sand

bound in my own silence 

a silk muffled senescence

until  the chemistry of storm and wind and smoke awakens in me

a coda of dancing electrons

spinning their newest song

Begin, begin, begin

and I sprout