Poem: Small Rituals and Sourdough

Sourdough

Wait wait for

lots of bubbles then

toil toil too much trouble

wait again for it will rise

and then the test

needing pleading rest

knock it down a cruel punch

then wait in hope of reprise

sweet sweet that final rise

before the baking of the bread.

Small Rituals

The victuals of our lives;

French Earl Grey tea

from a vacuum flask

while we watch our daughter

practise and play hockey.

All the things we leave behind.

All the things we pass and are;

socks, water bottles, pullovers

shin-guards, sticks, stones,

grass and bones, hoodies.

We are as we are

always

on our way home.

Living in Adelaide, Matt Gaughwin is a retired public health medical practitioner and Adelaide University Associate Professor, who continues with his PhD-based interests in the behavioural ecology of Australian wombats. Also a writer of poetry for many years, he has been able to further devote his time to such, since retiring from medical practice and joining Adelaide’s Friendly Street Poets. His first collection of poems, Thoughts of Dedushka, was jointly selected for Friendly Street’s New Poets 26 anthology, published and launched in October last year.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.

Photo: Unsplash / Lea Panaino