After a hectic, stressful few weeks, I went for a walk in Spring sunshine today and all my worries floated away like fluff in the breeze. It was as if my city understood that I needed solace and she could provide it. So I wrote a few words for her…
Today my city threw her arms around me…
Today my city threw her arms around me, her pollen heavy, Spring fragrant arms. She held me close and set me back on my feet. Today I walked on happy earth, through fluff stippled breeze in a landscape of sky and lake and trees and my city said: “Welcome home, dear friend…”
Today my city threw her sunlit arms around me and I saw the small things again: a crimson rosella on a grassy verge, the jewelled blue skitter of fairy wrens in leafy branches and a cluster of tiny mushrooms nestling magically in a tree trunk. And my city said: “This is what matters. This is always what matters…”
Today my city threw her arms around me and hustled me towards the tranquil foyer of the National Library… and as I gazed at those glorious stained glass windows and sipped a cup of tea, my city said: “Here is the place to calm your spirit…”
Today my city threw her soft, cool, loving arms around me and filled my heart with gladness and sang me into serenity…
© Anita Patel, 2017
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Published by anitapatel
Anita Patel is a writer (and retired teacher) who has lived in Canberra since 1982. She is as Australian as a banana paddle pop and a pair of sandy thongs and she is also a part of the Asian diaspora. Her collections of poetry are: 'Petals Fall' published by Recent Work Press in 2022 (https://recentworkpress.com/product/petals-fall) and 'A Common Garment' published by Recent Work Press in 2019 (https://recentworkpress.com/product/a-common-garment/).
In 2019 she collaborated with acclaimed artist, Annie Franklin, to produce 'Heart Stitched' (a story (in paintings and poetry) of the quirky, unexpected and dazzling layers in the natural world).
She has had work published in the Canberra Times, in Conversations (Pandanus Press, ANU), in Block 9, Burley Journal, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Demos Journal, Mascara Literary Review, Not Very Quiet Journal, Cordite Poetry Review, Backstory Journal, Other Terrain Journal, Pink Cover Zine, FemAsia Magazine, Plumwood Mountain Journal and Eucalypt: a tanka journal, The Australian Poetry Anthology (Vol. 8 2020) and Print Issue 42 of The Blue Nib Journal. Her children’s poems are included in an anthology Pardon My Garden published by Harper Collins. Her poem “Women’s Talk” won the ACT Writers Centre Poetry Prize in 2004 and her poetry was selected for and published in Australian Book Review’s States of Poetry ACT, 2018.
She has performed her work at the Canberra Multicultural Festival, Poetry on the Move Festival, Noted Festival, Floriade Fringe Festival, In Other Words Festival (at Lost in Books, Fairfield), the Queensland Poetry Festival, the National Folk Festival, at Smith’s Alternative, at Word in Hand, Glebe and La Mama Poetica.
Her reviews, “Found in Translation”, on the performances of four Japanese women poets and their translators at Poetry on the Move Festival, 2017 and “No More Silent Waiting”, on the anthology Autonomy edited by Kathy D’Arcy (2018) have been published by Not Very Quiet Journal. She was the guest editor for Issue 2 of Not Very Quiet Journal. View all posts by anitapatel
teapotsandincense 
Lovely!
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Thanks! 🙂
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