Aileen Kelly (1939 - 2011) R.I.P

Aileen Kelly died peacefully this morning. She had been ill for a long time. She was a profound influence on me in both my writing and personal life. I will miss her being in the world. This was a poem I wrote when we regularly workshopped our poems together.

When You Leave

(for Aileen)

We never have enough time

husbands, children, engagements

clamour, bang spoons

while we rush words together.

When you leave I wish I had said less,

finished my sentences.

I never know when to stop

always exceed the speed limit

while you speak with scientific precision

eight kilometres past the hundred

and your foot over the brake.

It's not for that I want to say I love you

it's those wild angels tugging at the seams of your poems

the way burst through the careful sonnets

dancing on large, unruly feet.

When you leave I wish I had touched you,

or given you something in return for your symphonic voice

still echoing in all this sudden room.

I look at my cowardly hands,

my small collection of books, the red apples on the bench.

If I send this unsigned

will you know it's from me?

Consider it an apple,

or the caress I withheld;

this is my hand resting on your cheek for one quiet moment.

Catherine Bateson, The Vigilant Heart, University of Queensland Press, 1998.

Read more Tuesday Poems here.

Tuesday Poem - 'Late Night Critique of Sexton and Plath' - Catherine Bateson

Late Night Critique of Sexton and Plath

All week the mad dead have circled my sleep, creeping
off the pages I read while I rocked my child, fever-flushed
and inconsolable. I asked them why;
why it wasn't enough; the weight of a child
the smell of rain, the comfort of unread books?
The child banged his head on my shoulder -
we raged together, dumbly persistent in our pain.
I hated them for giving in, leaving their lives
a sad pile of pickings for the greedy.
And how we excuse them, write their absent notes,
wipe their faces clean, make them tidy.

In the dark room the dead assembled,
they held out their hearts
like begging bowls but I would not love them.
If I'm called to give witness it's not to that -
death as a blanket, a comforter
but how life takes over, bustles in
opens the curtains,
gives the day a shake.

Catherine Bateson, The Vigilant Heart, UQP, 1998.

I want to firstly apologise for putting up two of my own poems in three weeks - I'm slowly attempting to organise permission from other poets, but it's been busy here with the new teaching year beginning, some family issues and some internet issues. So please forgive me!

This poem comes from my second collection.

Check out other Tuesday Poems here.