Poem: The Rhythm of Life
In today’s Poet’s Corner, John Sabel contributes a second poem from his published collection ‘Sonrise on Kangaroo Island’.
Kangaroo Island. Photo: Rodney Campbell / flickr
The Rhythm of Life
There was a time when we were young with little ones in 1973. We built a house on KI, accidentally. Quaint style, an attic home, white sloping roof for sliding down, carpet square delights, and kindy tables, chairs. The whole bare land and beaches free to roam. Third house in town. Great place for holidays and friends and honeymoons, eighteen young students at one time. Snakes and fish unlimited ‒ with atmosphere. There was a time when we changed down our life, just us in 1987. We came to live, and made a proper home. We moved the walls a bit, and changed the furniture, but kept the carpet squares, the colour, love and peace. New magic in the garden trees and flowers, the signs of energy in music, fishing, business, drama, helping, phone and fax ‒ with atmosphere. There came a time when we retired a bit, still both of us. In the year 2002 we’ve spread the house again most magically. More space, more place to sit and dream and view, more access to the loo. Questions still about the carpet squares, but confident that life for grand folk now allows freedom for change in fishing, gardens, work ‒ with atmosphere unchanged. Our house is sharing in the rhythm of our life.
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John Sabel was a pastor of the Lutheran Church in Townsville and Maryborough in Queensland and on Kangaroo Island. He has been a chaplain to university students in Adelaide, chaired the management committee of the Kangaroo Island Rural Counselling Service, and was one of the initiators in 1989 of the Kangaroo Island Dudley Writers’ Group. Holidays at Baudin Beach on the island’s Dudley Peninsula from 1973 led to living there permanently from 1987. John’s poetry collection, “Sonrise on Kangaroo Island”, is printed by Flinders University Press, with a preface by the university’s Professor Norman Habel.