ANZAC Day

Today is ANZAC day, April 25th. This day is for Australians and New Zealanders to remember those who have died in war. ANZAC day is acknowledging that sometimes war occurs in order to protect something worth dying for. This day is not about glorifying war.

I feel that this day is not just about those who did not return from war, for those who did return were forever changed. When I was a child it was my Great-Grandfather Da who took me fishing and gave me one of my first jobs sweeping floors. Da was in the British Navy and survived World War II. Yet even towards the end of his life the impact of war still lingered. Often I remember him and think about the impact war had on him and many of our family. In trying to understand my thoughts drifted across the fields of the many battles that have occurred in the last 100 years.
From this the poem Red Tears came into being.

On this day I remember Da and those like him who survived, but have had to learn to live with all that they faced in war.





Da is the one of
the far right of
this picture.

Anzac Day by Allison Brown is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Australia License.
Based on a work at allisonbrown.blogspot.com.

Life has a funny way of rushing by

I just realised that I have not posted on Behind Dreaming since July. Life does have a funny way of seeming to drag while you are in the moment but then you realise months have gone past. With this year coming towards its conclusion it is time for a little bit of reflection.

Since July I have found so many things that inspire me. I am starting to pay attention to other poets more than I have before. This has made me realise that being a poet is not simply something that would be nice, it is who I am.

This week I spent some time putting together a Haiku for a unique challenge. I needed to write a Haiku which explores the Spirit of Open Access. For many poets out there the fact that they listed the structure as 17 syllables (5,7,5) would mean it was not a Haiku. However, this was not the point and it was an interesting challenge. This is another example of where I find inspiration for my poetry from my job. I ended up writing 4 Haiku and I have just realised I probably should have applied Creative Commons to them. Oh well, I am sure I can sort that out if any of them get selected.

Between my job, the paper I have been doing recently and also trying to put together a body of work that I can submit for publication - Behind Dreaming has been neglected. I constantly think about what I should post here, but get caught up with trying to find the perfect, informative thing to post. I think it is time to get over it ;-).

So as this year comes to an end I can not help ask - where to from here? I do not really know and in some ways that is both scary and exciting.

For me I think this year can be explained by both A Bottle of Happiness and Reconnecting :)

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.