FOTOULA REYNOLDS - POEMS

Fotoula Reynolds is a writer of poetry, born in Australia of Greek heritage. She lives in the Dandenong Ranges in southern Australia. She convenes a poetry reading group in her local community and regularly attends and participates in spoken word events in and around the city of Melbourne. She is the author of three poetry collections and is published in five Australian anthologies. Fotoula is a 2019 Pushcart Prize nominee.

​Never

He never taught me
How to drive a car or
Change a tyre
 
I don’t know if he ever
Prayed for me and
All my baby teeth
 
I never got to jump
On the bed and
Wake him up
 
I never got to tell him
About falling slowly through a tree
And breaking branches along the way
 
I never heard his laugh echo
All the way to me from
Wherever he may be
 
I never learned how to catch fish
A handful of water to grasp or
The art of skimming stones
 
He never walked with me
Hand in hand along a leafy street
Or see Pegasus in the clouds
 
I don’t remember his voice
Ever saying my name
Not even in a long distance call
 
Fifty years later, I look out windows
To days that keep coming


He was supposed to be in them

​

Unspeakable grace

In the stillness of clouds
When floating is suspended
The sun creates a shadow-board
And I see the art of aging
 
I open the front door and let
The Florentina-blue sky greet me
Happiness is near, it tremors and
Hiccups and knocks inside my soul
 
I trace the outline of my birthmark
And I’m blessed by its existence
I search the pages of
A dictionary of angels
In the house of god
A thurible swings in prayerful time
And the burning of sage clears the way
 
I read the tombstones of
People I don’t know
Words etched inside decades
Sunlight stretches over
Marble and stone and
The glorious dahlias
Colour-wash the grey cemetery
 
I walk beside a trail of pinecones
Sparrows in the sky-high trees
Whistling birdsongs in the avenue
Poetic verses of love and loss immortalised
Wings of alabaster on the statue of
Saint Joseph and Santa Muerte
Archangels made of rock bow their heads
And kneel before the dead
 
An infant’s name embossed in gold-leaf
A mother whispers his name with
Unspeakable grace
He will not be starting school today


But he will be heard singing in the choir

​

​In the wings

I’m grateful that
My family are
Accessible to me
No member is in
My bad books or
Listed on the
Missing Persons Register
 
I’m grateful for my kitchen
The measure of hunger is
A salted and sobered gift
Providing spitikó food and
A drizzle of love in every
Kafethàki
 
I’m grateful for the noise
Under the tiles and the
Echoes and creaks in
The corridors where
The picture of my
Wedding day pales in
The empty sunlit room
 
I’m grateful for the
Old garden bench
Life there takes pause
The sun warms my soul
Under a river-blue sky and
On the banks of childhood
A faun stands motherless
 
I’m grateful for the clouds
As white as Carrera marble
Where God’s animals’ shapeshift
And on days where the pages of
My books turn on the fantail of
A currawong in the pink breeze
Love is invisible until dragonflies
Rise and fall revealing poems
In the membranes of their wings
 
Grateful for all the common things
 ​