In The Morning Grief Poem by Haris Hidayat

To the den autumn rides on an ebb tide, crawling.
Spruced up and groomed, winter’s fidgeting on the veranda.
Fleets of clouds from the Pacific scale up and down the wind,
contrived to smudge the blue over Lake Tuggerah.

Across the balcony, the pine and the gum tree
catered to the returning lorikeets
by whose first chirp I was languidly awakened.
Though the flock was a little quietened,
in the morning grief I have been rummaging about
for your devilish smile I long to relish and face to touch.

Having grown up and learned,
we both trip over the words, which once said
might as well become a binding pledge.
All I see, though, is confetti and scattered rose-petals.

Burning up, I want to bare it all with you
on a crowded Mediterranean beach holding hands, sun-drenched.
I can’t help dreaming of us bringing about
what my antecedents failed at, a family raised.
I am dying to denounce what my logic used to ridicule,
walking down the aisle with you as the bells chime, proud and loud.

The birds of the northern lands have arrived.
A forlorn call narrows down the distance
but, from a distance, I fumble about
the shivers of your body and virtues I gravitate towards.

(Central Coast, NSW,29 May 2010)