A Quote and Some More Poems

July 28, 2024

In “Mansfield Park”, Jane Austen said “We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.”

I found this quotation on the cover of Jane Austen: Journal, POTTER STYLE, 2007, Random House, China. It is so true and we so rarely attend to it, that it would be good to attend to it more often. This is especially relevant for women and regular journalling will assist the process. Does the same thing apply to blogging, I wonder?

Is it OK to include negativity in a blog, especially if one is writing about the past? I think it is, because one will reflect on the same incident differently according to one’s level of self development. Therefore I include a poem, here.

 

why not be depressed?

                                           there is reason

he took your body

                                      your personal space

he inserted his need

                                         in your privacy

 

 heaviness lay on you

                                like his body in the car

you couldn’t move

like a spider pinned through its flesh

 

 

 but this time

                         you are in your kitchen

and it’s fifty years later

not only do you have major depression

but you don’t know why

overwhelmed by anguish

you can’t see the future

                                      or even the present

and the past is horrific

Kootamundra Wattle always every winter

Sometimes you are fortunate enough to be able to transcend your emotions. They don’t affect you so much, whether they are in the present or the past.

Progress is not always spectacular, but can be measured by these profound subtleties such as transcendence. One doesn’t feel sad even when circumstances suggest that one should. I adopted the motto: not sad just different.

Sally Ann Hunter

Sally Ann Hunter is a biologist and environmental policy officer (BSc [Biol], MEnv Sts.). She has published a collection of poetry called The Structure of Light and a biography called You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down: from Parkinson’s to a New Life with Deep Brain Stimulation.

A paper she wrote on the biography, was read on ABC Radio’s Ockham’s Razor, as was a paper on living with solar power.

She completed a ten-month course called Manuscript Incubator at Writers SA. Also at Writers SA, she did Poetry Studio on Zoom with Jill Jones over several months.

A novel called Transfigured Sea, (Nature Writing) was published in 2022 and another called Golden Cups (Historical Fiction) is in the process of publisher’s revision.

A number of her poems have been published in anthologies and online. She lives in the Adelaide Hills where she gains inspiration for much of her Nature Writing.

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