All it takes

a poem for you after a morning swim

When I wake to remembered dreams

I keep one foot in that world

as I wander through

the loud bright other one;

those are always better days

when I am half-way through a

nightstory and the day is just

a clarification of what things mean.

Some days the world is a mountain in my chest

and I am crippled to take a harmless step.

In the valley, the shadow of death

pours down like the flood resent

to flush out our vacancies

where soulfulness once held.

Then, the strange murmurings

in my sleeping ear

hover like prophecy

and when I lift my eyes to the clouds

crying help across the waves

give us a different story

from this drowning dance

sometimes, if I am soft and just-awake enough

there is a rainbow to the west

dolphins to the east.

You can be shaken clean, friends

feel God returned to you like

a freshly laundered garment;

enough to make you want

to swim back to shore.

With love,

NEWSY STUFF

Yesterday I spent the morning signing a few hundred copies of my new book Bring Us Home from Sorrow at Gertrude and Alice. Copies are available WORLDWIDE through this wonderful bookstore - probably the only way you can get it outside of Australia as I’ve had no luck finding a home for it elsewhere. If you don’t mind the cost of postage, you can order your copy here and I will personalize each purchase:

https://www.gertrudeandalice.com.au/.../bring-us-home.../

Thank you to the 14 people who have already bought their copies (I know who you are).

There might be a few spots left for the Sydney launch on 8 March, International Women’s Day where there will be some glorious surprises on the evening if you choose to join me. Please note the venue is 163 Clovelly Road, Clovelly, not Gertrude and Alice bookstore.

https://events.humanitix.com/joanne-fedler-bring-us-home...