lest we forget

This morning

before dawn

the alarm woke me

and I accompanied my daughter Elsa 

down to the dawn service.

Never before had I thought of going

yet sometimes your children dictate

the state of play

and Elsa was singing onstage

in the cold in her uniform.

I assembled in the dark

as the ceremony began

and was struck by the number

of people paying respects

to the living and the dead

Previously I had thought of Gallipoli

as a failed battle 

evidence of the careleseness of generals

the madness of war 

and the killing of young men.

22 years ago

I travelled to Gallipoli

and stood where Attaturk

manned the machine guns

looking down the steep hills.

An impossible battle

2000 aussies killed on the first day

8000 in 8 months before

they retreated

defeated.

madness to even contemplate.

There in the dark

surrounded by strangers

we were reminded

that our freedom is paid in blood

by those that make the ultimate sacrifice.

I was struck with the thought that 

even though man fights his own nature

and wars are eternal. 

lest we forget is more about

the triumph of the human spirit

The dawn service is about human respect

its about standing together

believing in something bigger

than ourselves

and the fight against tyranny.

ANZAC day remembers the fallen

counts the endless lives lost over time

both ours and our enemies

and isn't so much about us vs them

its really about us.

As the dawn broke in the east

and I looked at the yawning kids onstage

and the sleepy faces around me

the little kids and 

the old veterans

I remembered some 

Gerard Manley Hopkins

learnt at school

in a time mostly forgotten

but still dear to my heart.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Lest we forget.

nostradamus

not being the predictive type

more the reactive type

I hesitate

before I write this.

everywhere I look

humans hunched

over devices.

da vices

and I wonder in the future

when they dig up our race

will they see our spines

bent at the neck

what will they say?

weights hanging from the head?

troubles of the world

or just bad posture

born of habit

poor thought

and

modern conditioning

I love to catch the train

and see everybody staring at the screen

no eye contact

no humour

is it any wonder 

why donald trump

is the president

right now?

dreamliner

Wandering down towards my fate

I came across my dreamliner.

it wasn't mine per se

Just anybodies sitting at a gate

and I remembered the last time

I sat behind the wing

and watched the tips rise out of sight

above the cabin.

like a swallow

more bird than plane

swept back wings 

deceptively small for such a large craft

the future of avaiton

lighter, faster more efficient

a better breed

of flight

I'm always reminded of 

Gerald Manley Hopkins

"the windhover"

about a falcon.

a modern plane

and old poem

read it 

and weep

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, 

king-dom of daylight’s dauphin,

dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, 

in his riding of the rolling level underneath him steady air,

and striding high there,

how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,     

As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding  

rebuffed the big wind.

My heart in hiding stirred for a bird,

the achieve of; the mastery of the thing! 

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here Buckle!

AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion times told lovelier, more dangerous,

O my chevalier!   No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion shine,

and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,  

Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

Give a little bit

Sometimes I feel that

We are so busy going places that

we don’t go anywhere.

My electrician Michael is a 60 something

divorced father of two grown children.

He has always been a relaxed easygoing individual.

He had a melanoma years ago

And recently when he said I’m stopping work

And disappeared

I feared the worst.

He wandered back into my life 6 months later

And told me a wonderful tale.

You see he’s been going to FIJI

And travelling to villages

Living with strangers

And helping out.

Sometimes he goes into the forest

And chops the trees and helps build houses

Occasionally there will be a house with electricity

And he plies his trade

Often he takes some cash and buys dry goods

And gives them to the villagers.

Whats that old line?

Charity begins at home?

I thought to myself

Here we are with everything in the world

And we struggle to get more

So we work hard, and buy more stuff

And remain unsatisfied.

Here’s a guy who has said to himself

I have enough.

He still needs to work to pay the bills

But for 3 months of the year

He gives back completely

And the smile on his face was something

To behold.

He’s an inspiration.

Modern life

The future is yet unmapped.

They say everything has already been done

Or written, or thought of before.

Until something new happens

That random element of chance

That idea that forms in a person’s head.

When I was young I believed there were

Sane people and crazy people.

One of my best mates, Dean

a man who I admire greatly

Put me straight.

“Pete” he said

“we are all crazy, just in our own way”

and I am reminded of that immortal line from a

Simon and Garfunkle song

“I don’t have a friend who feels at ease

I don’t know a soul that’s not been shattered or

driven to its knees”

A study once stated that happiness is 50% inbuilt.

The rest is up to you.

We have a responsibility to ourselves to find what it is

That makes us content.

Happiness is an illusion. You can feel happy,

you can do things that make you happy

but you cant keep it.

It’s a byproduct of action or inaction.

And the modern world isn’t exactly helpful

We are almost delivered into a world of addiction.

Booze, screens, sugar, sex, gambling, shopping

Rewiring the brain constantly with desire.

Dopamine

Rewards are out there no doubt, but this modern world

It’s a struggle.

Recently one of my best mates has told me he is bipolar.

The ups were great, the downs terrible.

The result was medication and the accompanying

Flatline.

Remove desire, remove emotion, remove addiction.

Problem is that’s what makes life exciting.

Meditation and self reflection are surely the key

Control over your own desires

Physical health and balance.

Key concepts in the prescription for well being.

But hey, I’ve got a product to sell you.

Its what you want, what you desire.

It’s a better you.

Do it and you can improve everything.

Or it wont,

because nothing really works.

Increasingly we are sold a lie.

My wife studied Yoga teaching

There was a lot of emphasis on being present.

Not just here, but being really here and now.

Not being distracted

Not being driven

Just being.

She put it better than anyone

“we are human beings, not human doings”

totally at odds with modern life.

family life

So its 10.30pm

And the people upstairs have just flown in from france

Perhaps it’s the French election

Or jet lag, but….

The kids are racing up and down and the dad is talking a mile a minute in french.

I cant hear myself sleep. I cant let myself think.

So I lie on the couch and listen to the heater.

When do you replace a heater?

Its asthmatic wheezing and irregular rattle

Make me think its perhaps a little to old

Needs to be put out to pasture.

Do I call the doctor or the plumber?

So I lie on the couch, reading the kindle

Listening to the downstairs rattle

And the upstairs rumble

And wonder when I will feel tired enough to sleep.

So its 11pm

And I trundle off to bed.

I can hear the 2 year old grinding his teeth

Or is it the cat.

The wife’s deep breathing and the people upstairs

Still at it.

I mean I am just as excited as the next punter

About Marcon’s election, and the resistence

To the hard right

But honestly should I go upstairs and tell them off?

So its 5.30 am

I wake to an argument between the kid and the mother

“Enough boobie”

 “no my boobie”.

On it goes.

And the asthmatic wheezing of my wife

Who has had an old cat sit on her half the night

Whilst a toddler was giving her a nipple cripple.

I thought my night was tough.

So its 7.15am

My son has stolen my iphone

So he can sit up at night after everyone has gone to bed

And watch shit on youtube.

When he has a naplan test today

And is dead tired.

First world problems.