Hi everyone. I'm going to read in this video a few poems from Null Row, an Australian poet who died a couple of years ago, I believe. I met him in Jerusalem of all places and little did I know that it was shortly before he was to pass away from cancer, I believe. So touching the hymn by Null Row. Two visitors this afternoon. Two visitors this afternoon, both poets, bringing with them salad, bread, chicken broth and delicious conversation. As they spoke the room became an apartment in Nagoya where a foreign poet ran his finger down the skin of cities he had known, Venice, Berlin and Lepas, until each turned to touch him softly face to face in the dark. A slow afternoon that made its way around Mossman Harbor, where creaking gots whispered among themselves about the days they raced each other all the way to Hobart, while waiting to see which way now the breeze was likely to carry them. As they spoke I was able to believe two poets exercising civil speech on a climb to be a blessing or the very least to show a better way to live. It wasn't what they said, it was the way their careful voices held the sound of chameleons coming into color. Early Sunday morning. Early Sunday morning, out the back in the garden the birds are having quiet practice. The day is theirs for now. The radio says another hurricane has hit the coast of America that this time no one has been killed. A respected scientist blames global warming, while the president gives his speech about result. Trying to think of cancer, I lie as deep as I can in a salt water bath the first for the day, feeling the water tuning cold. Later at night. I take yet another bath this time with a book a friend has given me. Water and books. I could almost be prosperous, except I find myself having a word with my bitter flesh saying, well body old friend, we've been together a long time now. How much longer do we have? All the time rubbing with a veins have written on my heel. I'd been asleep and when I woke. I'd been asleep and when I woke to smell your aftershave. I thought I might be still in the airport at room that day you went along the perfume shells in duty free, sampling all they had, covering every inch of unclosed flesh with delicious scent. Enjoy, you said. Enjoy. But I was still here and you were sitting by my bed. We talked a little tennis, property, work, before someone else you knew who'd had bowel cancer. I showed you flowers you're in if you left. Mays they'd last as long as they had. Sleep, you said. I did and when I woke you'd gone. I put my hand out away, you'd been then drew it back, wondering if there was any perfume left behind. On this the first of, on this the first after many days of illness I am able to walk. I make my way to where I can see the Anzac bridge held like a wishbone over the roofs of Gleep. Above me clouds appear to be a paddock that has felt the plow, until I smell again an earth being toned at the corner of the farm, where what we called the log paddock sits besides the swamp, the great damp dark in which my brother and I used to play jungle games. Like heroes from our comic books, we slipped between the shadows and the rushes, swung from trees and felt together we could never really come to harm. In a moment you arrive again to sit beside my bed and will remember eating red-billed superm other made. Sundays on Sundays with our father at the Greek cafe, the milking stall from a camp for lor or branch, and evening light putting its hands into the sides of paper-box. This day he brought me, for all time sick, a phantom comic with a story called Healing Hands. It is, he tells me, a sign. Day by day love. Day by day love came quietly to the ward under the appearances of chocolates, kisses, flowers, hands, a relic of Mary McIllip, as well as an icon of the Virgin Mary that I tried to focus on when I feel them or feen start rippling down the edges of my dream. And then the news. My study has been tidied up. All the books are back on shelves, all the papers packed away. The desk is once more revealed as would. All I can do by way of thanks is to say, as I was being wheeled into surgery, the enneithetist confessed his favourite poet was John Shaw Nielsen. Tell him, she'll be pleased to know. Seven. I keep my feet. I keep my feet going to the rhythm of the exercise machine. I stare straight ahead at planes that pass across that tiny space the window makes. Plains flying in from the north. I do not think how much I want to see you. Today for the first time I was able to walk outside, to be again part of traffic noise and smell the skin of bichuman, then turn to wear fresh gardens, give themselves to the warm grip of spring, and say hello to a mother pushing a pram, though I did not look to see what it held of her bundled future. Buttercup. Buttercup, Buttercup, says the speech pathologist to the 84 year old whose bed is next to mine. He's had a stroke. His speech is slowed. She'll show him how to get it clear. He at first defense himself offering her chance to view his war wound. It's worked with all the other nurses, not this one. Buttercup, she says, then tells him she's organised an occupational therapist to check the safety of his home. She needs to verify his name, address and marital status. O'Brien, he says. O'Brien. O'Brien. She says, that was my mother's name. He brightens up. Perhaps they share an ancestor. He knows the boats that brought his people here. He gives her names, dates, places. That all she says is, Buttercup, don't forget, we'll get you talking again at no time at all. 9. This is just a say. This is just a say. I've finished already the ginger chocolate you brought. Probably because I so much enjoyed your visit. 10. They've shut the window. They've shut the window, closed the blind and turned the air conditioner on. The hospital settles down to night sounds, televisions, buzzes, the final lap of an anxious walking frame. I lie awake, thankful for the visitors who've just gone and wondering when to take my pill. Outside the Jacaranda sleeps easily, dreaming up more and more colourful tomorrow. That's it for tonight. It's pretty late, as usual. Hope you enjoyed the readings. Let me know if you want to find out more about Null Road. It's a pretty good poet. It's a shame. I'm sure you could have written a lot more really good stuff. Okay. Alright.