Tuesday 10 December 2013

Peace


The leaf leaves without a word,
lets loose the grip and falls.
Father went the way of the leaf.

He told me casually, months before the fall,

‘It gets easier the closer you get,
a thing I never expected,
it gets easier the closer you get.’

I reached out to touch his arm,
noticed his skin had become speckled,
as if he was returning to the egg
after all the time spent in the sun.

His hand rested palm upwards,
the fingers gave a slight tremble,
and I was reminded
of a poem by Seamus Heaney;
dad had grown tired of holding us.

I watched each moment
hatch in his chest
until the next moment never came.

It was like
an ocean without waves
or the sun without light.

He fought at the end despite
his words. I wept…but water
cannot erase the truth.

Sunday 1 December 2013

Clearing their names

 
It was on Faraday Street that
Fox and Wolf came to me.
They could see the fearful way my feet
trod the steps towards school where
ideas buzzed about in the forest of unbroken voices,
ignorance stinging my mind
as if the beaks of springtime woodpecker
sought blind answers..

In the years since
both have been treated harshly,
painted as miscreants
who lead me asunder.
Truth is, Fox and Wolf understood
my dilemma,  pulled me out
of the maelstrom of school,
took me to the island
where it was said a cure might be found.

Man-time scared me, the swift urgent current
of action, of movement, more terrifying
than lightning; life in flesh resembles
a forest fire. The ability of legs, in recompense,
seems miserly.

The Island was a deceit
but Wolf and Fox
were always kind while around me
the world spun out of kilter.

In the craziness of those Island days
I lost contact with them both -
it is an easy thing for me to do,
forced as I am to pinpoint everything down
to single moments laid side by side by side.

Construction


There are quiet days when I sit
in a room's comforting corner,
study moving joints that permit
knee, ankle, thumb and finger.

The leap for a cell to acquire
complex structure is almost enough
to make me believe but desire
and truth are not the same language.