A Perfect Wednesday

Wednesday last dawned overcast and soft. 

River Derwent under clouds
Tuesday evening we’d been at the Hobart Jazz Club for dinner and an evening of fine jazz with the Dave Sikk quartette (harmonica, double bass, guitar, drums, vocals) and had stayed up later than usual. It was good to have a soft slow morning—

Cloud on Mount Nelson

We lingered at the table, talking about books we’d read as children. Irene remembered the Dana Girls. I’d never heard of them, but my best Christmas ever was the year I was 8 when I got 8 books, 4 of them about the Bobbsy Twins. As we talked rain fell. Our plans for a beach walk went on hold.

The pleasures of the desk

The sound of the rain was pleasing. I wasn’t unhappy to hunker down at my desk. Waiting on it was a MS I wanted to read, a collection of poems by my friend Liz McQuilkin. I met Liz in 2009 when I was last in Hobart and we’ve kept in intermittent touch. She had retired from a career of teaching high school English, brilliantly I’m told, and started writing poems. The MS is for her first book, "The Nonchalant Garden", due out from Walleah Press later this year.

In 2009 I’d heard Liz read some of her poems. In fact I’d gone on a lovely jaunt with her to watch black swans so she could write about them. She’d been invited to respond to an exhibition of (mostly) bird paintings at the then Salamanca Collection (now the Colville Street Gallery). Liz wanted a close look at living black swans before she wrote a poem for the painted ones. We drove to Bridgewater and watched swans, some on the river, some with heads poking watchfully from nests in the long grasses.

Here, with Liz's permission is her poem:

Rara Avis

As rare on earth as a black swan, wrote Juvenal, 
consigning this bird to myth
for a thousand years.

Yet they’ve always been in southern waters. 
They dot the upper Derwent, each an oval islet 
with a slender line that rises in an S,
a contrary question-mark. Look.
Banks of birds are floating, necks looped back, 
beaks tucked into feathers more grey than black, 
more downy soft than sleekly smooth,
for nesting time is also moulting time.

There, on shore, a solitary swan is sitting.
It turns a ruby beak towards its mate 
carving a path through head-high sedge
to take its place on the life-long nest.
And there, a pen and cob dabble in shallows, 
disturb the surface, dive for richer pickings. 
Cygnets dart before, behind, between;
little feet fly up in comic mimicry.

In a flash of dazzling white, a cob rears up,
displays its dramatic wings, quickly regains composure. 
Another lifts off with frantic feet and wingbeats,
levels its outstretched neck and skims the river.
Mated birds sail downstream, profiles arched
in parallel, each a pas-de-deux
danced to distant, water-carried swan song. 

But back to my perfect Wednesday. As I was about to read the MS the post man dropped letters in the box. Two were for me—a long letter from Dorothy in Stratford (ON) and a card from Ruth in Toronto. Ruth is rereading Barbara Pym—I checked my impulse to rush downstairs to Irene’s shelves and look for Pym, I can read her at home. Dorothy reminded me we had tickets to see “Alice Through the Looking Glass” next May. How lucky I am to have  friends who write letters! 

The lulling sound of the rain continued as I turned to Liz's MS. When I surfaced from her lovely poems I stared out the window for a while and thought about them. Then I turned to an essay that needed revising. Next it was time for lunch. The rain let up, I walked to the Express Shop to mail letters. When I got back to the house I made decaf lattes for Irene and me, we sat and talked, then  back to the essay and before I knew it was wine o’clock—and soon after, supper time.  

As usual we had a delicious meal. Irene made a salad of lettuce, bacon, onion, tomato, and avocado, and we christened it BLOAT for short. The evening had grown brighter, the rain had stayed away. After eating we walked Poets Road and then up Knocklofty.

Walk up Knocklofty

There are picnic tables at the viewpoint that overlooks the city. We perched at them to watch twilight come in. A few birds called, ravens of course, and some small one that buzzed. A New Holland honeyeater flew into the banksia marginata and began feeding on its blossoms.

New Holland Honeyeater on Banksia marginata

The viewpoint faces more or less east (the western horizon is hidden behind the Mountain) and the sky over the river grew pale mauve, then pink. The moon, on the verge of full, hung high over the eucalyptus trees.

Derwent, late twilight (looking east)

Moon rising

Darkness was rising, time to head down hill while we could see the trail—it’s sandy, dry, steep. As we stood up a large bird flashed past. Kevin saw it land on a branch about forty feet away: a kookaburra, silent. I reached for my camera and it flew. We walked downhill.   

Home again, we settled to ice cream and biscuits as we reviewed our walk and then picked up our books and read  till bedtime.  

A whole day had unfolded without rushing--I would like more days like that.