A Poem is a Parachute

By Megan Schaffner

‘Megan Schaffner knows how poetry works. She knows the way a strong poem can float you gently to somewhere you’ve never been before/ [where] with luck/ you’ll land wrong side up/ exhilarated/ ready to explore a new country. This is precisely what Megan’s poetry does. As soon as you land, you realise you are in the hands o

• Language: English
• Publisher: Debbie Lee
• Release date: Oct 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781760412210

Megan Schaffner

Megan Schaffner came from South Africa to Tasmania with her husband and two children in 1961. After the birth of their third child, she taught Drama at the Hobart Teachers College and then worked as a Speech and Drama Adviser in the Tasmanian Education Department. During a long and happy retirement, she travelled in Australia, South Africa and Europe, edited three anthologies - poetry, short stories and essays - for the Tasmanian branch of the Fellowship of Australian Writers and enjoyed her grandchildren. She also indulged her passion for poetry, writing and reading, ran poetry reading groups and found time to write poetry, a family history and memoirs.

Book preview

A Poem is a Parachute

A Poem is a Parachute

Megan Schaffner

Ginninderra Press

Contents

A Poem is a Parachute

Thanks and Acknowledgements

A Poem is a Parachute

ISBN 978 1 76041 221 0

Copyright © text Megan Schaffner 2015

Cover image: Giles Hugo

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All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. Requests for permission should be sent to the publisher at the address below.

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First published in this form 2015

Reprinted 2016

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Ginninderra Press

PO Box 3461 Port Adelaide SA 5015

www.ginninderrapress.com.au

In memory

of Denis Graeme Schaffner,

who enriched my life immeasurably

1922–2013

A Poem is a Parachute

The undiscover’d country

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The world outside my window

is beautiful beyond belief,

slow blue hills lie gently

on the pale water,

a sail and its reflection

burn like a white flame,

a glinting knife

and below the window

rain-washed eucalypts.

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Stand beside me friends

who have gone into the light,

this is my world,

see what I see –

and bring me word of yours.

A Poem is a Parachute

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Jump!

Head in the clouds

it holds you

opens out

billows into silken images

delights you with expansive meanings

floats you gently to somewhere you’ve never been before

with luck

you’ll land wrong side up

exhilarated

ready to explore a new country.

Revenant

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Suspended between continents,

between birthplace and destination,

her body begins the slow

metamorphosis

to wandering albatross.

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Bones elongate,

hollow,

flesh thins to parchment,

words elide to a long harsh cry

as she flies above endless cloud tundra

through roofless halls of air.

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Beneath the dark sun

sleeping on the wing

she is one with countless souls

for whom home is an unknown

word in a foreign tongue.

Mother Tongue

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After years of constant sunshine

clouds tower overhead.

The children hear in wonder

water thrumming on the roof

and gurgling into tanks.

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Gleeful

under gushing downpipes,

faces skyward,

mouths agape,

they taste

and tongue a new word

rain.

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Splashing in the backyard

they build two towers of kero tins –

London Bridge –

they know it from their picture books.

A crowbar spans the muddy Thames.

After dark their father

stumbles

searching for the cat.

London Bridge is falling down…

Now the air’s electric