The Distance a #throwback

The Distance

 

I woke up recently with a line from this old poem of mine firmly lodged in my head.  It was inspired by viewing the film ‘Green Card’.

 

The Distance

It all started in our youngest years,

We shared the good times, sadness, and our fears,

Times of strife, times of laughter, and of cheers,

We did not realise how each to the other we endeared.

 

So, as years went on, we clustered tight,

Clinging close together with all our might,

As we found answers to the wrong and right,

Under the guidance of a securing light.

 

I thought of the years within our lives span,

Things we did on our insistence,

My heart cries out for reminiscence,

I seek you calling in the distance.

 

For it seemed we had grown far apart,

Much too far, I feared, for the stretch of my heart,

My mind did wander, and my thoughts did dart,

What a shame, and I wished for a return to the start.

 

But when I saw you just the other day,

And you told you lived just one block away,

My heart it jumped, and I lost all my dismay,

With you now to thank the Lord, I pray.

 

We think of the days within our lives span,

Things we did on our insistence,

Our hearts now have their reminiscence,

And I hear your calling, without the distance.

 

Simon C.J. Falk c.1991

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An Incoming Tide

Picture: Peering through trees to Merimbula Lake

An Incoming Tide

It was my privilege and delight to have served, at different intervals of time, in both Bega and Pambula Parishes.  Both of them celebrate 150 years this year.  I am unable to attend either of the celebrations.  A truly beautiful part of this State of New South Wales, our family had holidayed there at times.  Later I would work there.  Part of me will always feel a yearning to be there. So, while I was adrift on a sea of memories, impressions and feelings, a poem emerged.  It is included here.

Picture: Snug Cove at Eden

An Incoming Tide

An incoming tide

Of gratitude

Laps

Upon the shore

Of my thankful heart.

Hearing the news of 150 years

Fell upon me

A wistful haze

And then

A start!

Speak, I must

Of tidings,

Wishes to folks

Friends and others,

Who dwell upon

Meadows and hills,

Crags and beaches,

Or points and rocky ramparts,

That keep watch,

Over billowing seas.

Ah, the mighty Bega Valley

And Sapphire Coast.

Jewel that glints

And glistens,

In the eye

Of everyone who has seen it,

Felt it,

And breathed

The briny air.

And where it has

Taken them.

Taken them

It has.

To a place within,

Where a little piece of coast

Has settled in the heart.

And,

If one listens,

They can hear the reverberations,

The swirling sound,

Like a sea in a shell,

Stirring the caverns

Of our inner selves,

Keeping always a little current

Of this valley and coast

inside.

Picture: looking up the wending Yowaka River

Simon C.J. Falk           23 September 2015