for my father
Shovel

i.
Beneath a trademark

rust – spendnought
the worn calligraphy

of work – still
stamped on the shaft.

The work ethic
of his generation.

Not replaced
but repaired,

over and over again.
The patchwork

of so many years
made stronger always

at the broken place.


Fishing Sinker

ii.
Making with him as a child

spoon-sinkers for the dragging surf
of Christmas beaches.

Molten lead – poured 
into his workman’s thumbprint

into sharp wet sand
a metaphor that might turn

base metal into something precious.
Handing carefully

the small crucible to me,
that first time – to make my own,

after his fashion. Lies now 
within my grasp. The alchemy

of all that I once had from him.


Lino Knife

iii.
The blade

a small silver crescent moon
of tempered steel

honed to a razor:
he might test along

the dark hairs on his hand.
And then the cut and slice,

a secret pact
between his eye and fingers.

The sharp smell of new
yellow linoleum. The dark red

inlay of swirls and shapes
and then the quick fish

that swam beneath the knife.


Golf Spoon

iv.
A khaki canvas bag

of wooden sticks
he shouldered across

the bare earth and stony
golf course

at Tumby Bay
raking the sand

as an auxiliary for grass
always a birdie

on the fifth
an eagle on the ninth

and who used to say 
the best wood in his bag

was his pencil.


Fountain Pen

v.
For four years

in Darwin after the Japanese
poured his heart out

in a river of love
the blood transmuted

into blue ink
through the small black

Bakelite pen
one for every day

to the woman who was not
my mother then

a marriage in only words
burning them all after he died

before she got too old to forget.