Home / Gran Slam / 2020 / Kathryn Boorman, 73

Kathryn Boorman, 73

Age: 73

Suffolk Park, Byron Bay

Kathryn Boorman believes that performance can be “entertaining, inspiring, and potentially bring about change”. Strong words from a writer and poet who has given voice to new ideas in one way or another all over the world. This retired English teacher lived in London, France, New Zealand and Vietnam, where she volunteered to teach English as a second language. She is well versed in writing and reciting poems as part of her globe-trotting life as well as right here at home in Suffolk Park, NSW. Kathryn is passionate about living life to the full and, as she describes, clear communication. We hear you, Kathryn!

I am a boat painted a jaunty cobalt blue

I am an old wooden sailboat with faded, flaking paint.

How I love to untie my bowlines and escape the suburban doldrums!

My sails were woven by restless dreams,

plaited with the warp of disappointment.

My mast was built by my salty lover

whose heart is always reaching for the open sea.

Carved from sun bleached driftwood, free of splinters

it is unassailable.

I’ve sailed from the cove of niceness

across the channel of delusion

through the straits of self destruction

to the inlet of solitude.

I have been shipwrecked

on the cliffs of despair

even within view

of the bluff of contentment.

I was repaired in dry dock,

my holes patched, sanded smooth

and repainted, a jaunty cobalt blue.

I’ve seen how a storm can come out of nowhere

when my back is turned, and my guard is down.

Then, a thirty knot wind can blow me ninety degrees off course

till that island with the sheltered anchorage

becomes unreachable.

Now I’m anchored in the bay of last chances.

The coral is starting to bleach,

but some of the turquoise reef fish still grow to full size.

Now the sea is calm-

the storm has passed on

to give someone else a hard time.

Now it’s become the next generation’s problem,

and to my shame

I’ve just strung my striped hammock between two palms,

to breathe by this aqua lagoon.

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