I knew Lyndon for a relatively short time in his life, after we became neighbors in 2006. Lyndon, Sherinda and Jasminda, were our neighbours “on the left”, which seemed immediately appropriate, given our shared interest in and passion for community development and public policy.
We got to know each other so well over the ensuing eight years, enjoying lively Friday evening catch ups, shared working bees and long languid lunches, always spiced with humour and deep discussion on all those topics dear to Lyndon’s heart.
From the outset we knew Lyndon was a man of deep passions and strong conviction. But most of all he was humble. Lyndon was widely read and possessed the inquiring mind of the natural intellectual. Despite the depth and breadth of his knowledge on almost any topic, he never dominated a conversation. His particular skill was to draw out the ideas of others and “open a conversation up” to broader possibilities and discourse.
He had a beautiful sense of humour and irony, which meant that laughter was never very far away, even on the few occasions when strong points of difference might be encountered.
Lyndon was my “Poet - Brother in Arms” – travelling with me to recite some of his beautiful and thoughtful Poetry at the annual Mollongghip Poetry Slam on three occasions. My personal favourite being “Blessed Are The People Smugglers” which displayed equally his great sense of justice, humour and irony in what was an outpouring of rage on the topic of Australia’s treatment of Asylum Seekers.
He was a travelling friend from the outset of my crazy five year endeavour to resurrect the bones of an 1862 Mud Brick ruin on the family farm at Arcadia. Driving away one day when we had erected a badly measured and crookedly set post in the centre of the structure, he remarked “Got a bit of work to do there mate”. The immensity of the task never stopped him returning though and we made great progress working there together on many a pleasant Sunday outing, and the odd overnight camp with the mosquitoes. I am sad, because he was there with me the first day he became suddenly and acutely ill, “Mate I will have to head off early I’m a bit crook” he had said. I am sad because he can’t see it now close to completion, and still a bit “jerrybuilt”, but with the crooked post now appropriately covered in Arcadian mud.
I loved Lyndon like a brother. I miss him every day.
Here are three poems I wrote for him while he was battling his illness. Rest well mate, your spirit lives on all around us.
Ginger Is Dead - 19th May 2012
Lyndon I ran around the two bottom lakes gentle span
Again today
Midgies flew into my crying eyes as I ran
Lyndon - I brushed those Midgies away
I remembered - the first weekend
When we all moved in
Diving into that not yet polluted lake on the development’s western end
For a hot evening’s swim.
Took me thinking
That I wouldn’t swim there now.
Now that you’re sinking
And there’s bloody Tiger Snakes around anyhow.
Ginger knows that
That two bites can take you
Can find you out, find where you are at
And though you are older and wiser – at times there can be nothing left to do.
Or maybe, there’s any amount of things to do
And not enough time left, not enough time for you And your energy, which has (at present) left
And we who love you watching - are feeling bereft.
And of course
The snake did its thing last year and poor old Ginger is dead
And maybe there’s nothing else that in the moment needs to be said
But I want to say it now, rather than later – so it enters YOUR head.
You are much loved
For your caring and for your sly humour,
For your fierce intelligence
And now – in this - for your fortitude.
By your family,
By your friends and
By your business associates.
Whether your struggle be short
Or whether it is long
We love you for your voice
For the way you sing YOUR life’s song.
Winter's Bones - 30th June 2012
All the old Royal Parade trees
Have shed their leaves
They stand stoically in their bare inner skins
There's little winter growth now in their old tired growth rings.
On leafless, reaching spare, cold branches
Lonely prey birds cower and try to take their chances,
They cower in their chilly lofty hideaways
Away from those cold-clear eyed, searching birds of prey.
In the grey mist and the gusting wind
The rotting fallen leaves are now neatly placed in bins
The tidy desperate rakers, rake their raking places
In coats and gloves, the walking walkers – step out their walking winter paces.
Down deep - in cold July's frozen soils
Myriad subterranean insect soldiers - undertake their numerous insect toils
They burrow away, make compost, and they dig on through their days
All the half living things scratch and scratch; they scratch away.
In July when the cold and icy morning's freeway traffic hum is so clear
and everything is stretched tight and hard with a coldness strangely like heat's burning sear
and you can feel the vibrations that the magpies and kookaburras still send
And your spirit is ebbing, and mate, you are closer to the end.
Nature marches on to its own tune, without seeming to try
And, in the cold and bitter months of June and July
And when nature is bristling all around, both low and high
When your earthly spirit is finding it harder and harder to try
When the chill of the cold rattles your bones and you can barely sigh
Go peacefully mate – the shorter life is just sad; and there’s no earthly reason why
Pale Winter Sun - 2nd July 2012
It’s Thursday on the cancer ward
Intense looks are exchanged
As you go struggling forward
You never once complained - about being short changed.
Instead
You celebrated the pale winter sun’s glorious heat On your head
On your poor, cold, cold feet.
You marvelled about
Life’s little things
Those - which on another day - are not “worth a shout”.
You remarked how a dying spirit can have wings.
We talked about
Your big To Do list
And about your doubts
You said you’d thought you’d “made a fist”
Held out for the things you’d believed
Felt proud of all you had achieved
Said you loved your child, your wife, the years of love and fun
You revelled in the pure simplicity of that day’s pale winter sun.
You asked every time about the kids
Didn’t keep your true feelings hid.
e talked of familiar things in the “body politic”.
You took and read - the weekly edition of the Guardian.
You held exactly true to your life’s course
Carried on your usual intelligent discourse.
Worked your own way steadily through
Lyndon, that’s the perseverant and steady spirit of you.
Now you’re gone away
The pale winter sun came out again today.
The birds sung out loud anyway, caroused in nature’s long stretching run.
Lyndon, I guess they felt encouraged, encouraged by that pale winter sun.
And finally the last word should be Lyndon’s
Blessed are the People Smugglers (Read at the Mollongghip Poetry Slam in 2009)
Blessed are the people smugglers
For they will enter the kingdom of heaven
You thought it was: Blessed are the Cheesemakers, didn’t you?
Well, you’d be right, but also I say unto you
Blessed are the people smugglers.
Moses led the Jews out of slavery in Egypt
His courage triumphed over the hazards of the water
And he is still a hero, so I say to unto you
Blessed are the people smugglers, like Moses.
Captain Arthur Phillip brought a miserable captive cargo
From the filth of London and the blight of Ireland,
To a new life in Australia.
For the original Australians, Phillip was a people smuggler
But he founded a modern nation, so I say to you
Against all odds and the current tide of hatred
Blessed are the people smugglers.
Oscar Schindler rescued Jews from the holocaust
And many other brave and moral people throughout history
Risked their own lives to save people from persecution,
Just like those bringing people out of Sri Lanka today.
Good on you, I say,
And stuff the windbag politicians, peddling fear
And bugger the wretched red-neck journos,
Against all odds, I hope they succeed.
Blessed are the people smugglers,
For they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.