Poem of the Week/14/8/2022

Mystery Bay is a profound and limpid poem. Here we see both niche, superficial mundane world and deep astral world stitched together, and at the interface a liminal space is prominent. Liminal phase is knitted in metaphors. The superficial sketch is dotted in soft metaphors like ocean breaths, coastal showers, yellow beak, flowers. Beneath them is fiery metaphors which are invisible, only comes in abstract aura, like winter, thunder, ashes. A great poem comes out of adult grief, simmering in creative energy. I like to call it something alike chrysalism, A hot embryo in serene amniotic fluid.

MYSTERY BAY

By Reese North

(In memory of my brother Chris, 1947-2020)

The ocean’s breath whispers through my room

mixed with smells of coastal showers

eucalypt and flowers

hot colours burn my eyes

‘til I look away, and the afterglow

impresses upon my window

a yellow beak taps the glass

wild eyes meet mine, and shadows pass:

sounds of feathers in the wind.

I gaze in wonder at the mystery

it never leaves me

it only grows

when lightening cracks the sky.

There’s thunder hidden in a rose

winter in a freesia

and something in my garden knows

the ashes of my Brother.

About this poem

I live on the east coast of Australia in a town called Newcastle. I loved poetry from an early age and began writing at the age of 8 years old. My poem ‘Mystery Bay’ came to me after my brother Chris died in 2020. At 2 am one dark night I was meditating about our life together as young boys while I was staying with a friend near the ocean. I felt something deep within me and around me and I began to compose the poem. The images flowed out of me from some deep recess within my soul. I feel this particular poem is a sacred expression of love for a brother that transcends time. I know I caught something mystical in the poem as a whole but particularly in

Reese North