Photo credit: Joshua Sortino Her hands are tearing at her hair; she sobs. Clean cloths discarded, dropped amongst the dust, destroyed, along with priceless spices lost.   Two days since Friday’s foul and unjust death, an emptied grave steals closure for her grief, indignance adds to his degrading end.   And now a stranger's asking why she weeps.   How can I bear the silence and the shame? Me - and my sisters – welcomed in his world. Shall we be seen as lowly once again?   One

After The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry First published in Turning Ten and other Stories of Life * , November 2025 In this wilding world as pompous weeds choke the hope of merciful folk, in which fear takes root over the carcases of buried books, fertilised with othering, I wake. Usually I lie, uneasy, and prepare my excuses for a despair-affected day… but from a poem crafted in tribute to Grace, I remember there is another way. I flip the bedsheets from my overheatin

I stepped out of my usual pattern tonight: I bravely went to a book discussion on Virginia Woolf's 'Mrs Dalloway', ostensibly because this week is 100 years since the setting of the story, but more realistically because someone I trust invited me to try Something New. "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." (Virginia Woolf, a century before Miley Cyrus) The setting: a bookshop/ lounge/ lecture space in damp mid-winter Adelaide, bursting with academic knowledge

Miss Seven, standing in the doorway to the church hall, held some cute little bagged sugar cookies under her chin. They were decorated in pastel coloured fondant, stamped with "LOVE", and tied up with curly ribbons - gifts for Mothers Day. She whispered to me cautiously, "Are you a mother?" "No," I answered, hoping my tone had enough lightness to hide any of my own residual regret, but also to protect her from embarrassment at asking the question. She should be allowed to ask

A new psalm inspired by Psalm 38