Photo by David Rifkin Copyright 2009

Seen from Above

Driving to Brisbane

Seen from above, our little yellow car
winding up hilly country gravel roads,
shiny and silly among rough trucks with loads,
must appear inappropriate and bizarre.
Is it, perhaps, the very thing we are?

Lovely, the blend of dust and leaf and wood,
balanced by birdsong and the tractor’s roar;
action and stillness as our spirits soar,
racing the sun before dark shadows could.
Everything, Pangloss said, is for our good.

Blinded by sunset, tree-flashed, into night,
darkness and moonlight up the motorway,
silvered into the city near the bay
sparkling like fireflies flirting with our sight,
over the great black river framed by light.

Seen from above we blend and disappear.
So many stories. Listen, the laughter bursts,
and ricochets off stone walls. Each spirit thirsts
after the gift of somewhere free from fear.
Seen from above this fragile life is dear.

by Janet Kenny

Janet Kenny was born in New Zealand. She was a professional opera singer in the United Kingdom and sang principal roles with international casts until health motivated a move to Sydney, Australia where she was active in anti-nuclear politics and co-edited and wrote a book about the international nuclear industry: Beyond Chernobyl. She now lives in Queensland. Published poems in print and online journals include Mi Poesias, The New Formalist, Avatar, The Susquehanna Quarterly, Folly, The Shit Creek Review, The Chimaera, 14 by 14, The Raintown Review, The HyperTexts, and Iambs & Trochees. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize and included in the international anthology The Book of Hope, and she has shared a chapbook with the American poet Jerry H. Jenkins and illustrated a book of poems by the Irish poet Jim Hayes.


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