poem
Saturday Mornings
Saturday mornings
It's newspapers and coffee
Toast and jam and tea
We sit on the back porch
And a song constantly plays
In my mind
The words silently forming their shape
On my lips
It is a love song
And while I'm not fully aware of it
It shapes my sense of completeness
She Visits Me
My sense of leftness
Has lost its potency
There is the time of the world around me
There is the time of world inside me
There is the time of history behind me
There is the time (stood still) of the aged care facility
I now spend my time in
There is the time (an eternity - or so it seems) of waiting for the future
That will be
Although they are enmeshed and entwined
They don't synchronise anymore
I cannot tell which is the one
I need to believe
Which is reality
Which is the memory
Which is the dream.
Somewhere I sense that she has died
Maybe four or five years ago
Maybe last week
Maybe tomorrow
My damaged mind
Refuses to let me know
To reassure me
To convince me one way or the other
As a fact
I think she was here
Only last night
My arm was trembling
And full of pins and needles
And she was there
To comfort me
To reassure me
That if it was still a trouble tomorrow
We could always make an appointment
And drive to the doctors
That would have to be in the car
I'm going to have to sell
Two years ago
And arthritis
Refuses to let me steer
Without the pain of fear
And she couldn't drive
That car -
We no longer owned it
And she had died
I know at times
I can be a grumpy old shit
But she brings me
Joy, happiness, peace, reassurance and clarity
Everytime
She visits me
Ashes
Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust
Atoms to atoms
Rust to rust
I believe that I touch
I believe that I see
I observe and I trust
All is all - as should be
Confined to a present
Determined by past
Juggernaut to a future
In paradox cast
Emotions qua objects
Perceptions qua truth
Metaphysics qua physics
Moribus qua ruth
Tags:
An Instance of the Everyday
An autumn leaf
Falls
The metaphysical clock
Marks the point
Preset as an awakening alarm
Signalling the appointed time
When this small miracle is to occur
The confluence of this mighty clock's gears and cogs
Dictate that I am to be present
When this leaf and branch
Repeat the annual expectation
Of their deciduous inheritance
(Or maybe I just happened to be there
When a gust of wind
And quiver of the branch
Caused the leaf
To fall -
I mean, it had to happen sometime)
Never-the-less,
I watch
The path the leaf takes
As it descends -
Breeze, thermal and atmosphere -
All in accord
With its own unique leafy aerodynamics -
Play keepings off
With its gravity bound
Inevitability.
Suddenly
A brilliant shaft of light -
A ray of sunlight
That has found a clear path
Through the dappling
Overhead canopy -
Intercepts the leaf's
Vacillating trace.
The impact is foudroyant
And I am outside the scene.
In less time than a thought
I am whipped through a complete
360o multi-camera sequence
Separated and orbiting,
I am witness to myself and the leaf,
The leaf and myself.
Unknowingly, I have joined the chorus
Of every magnificat
Spontaneously drawn to the lips
Of all those before me
And all those to come
Who have been encompassed
And transported
By an instance of the everyday.
Subsequent to this moment of infinity
The leaf continues its wavering flight
Until it settles on the moist and cushioned collection
Of those that have gone before
And are now adding themselves
In self-decompositional sacrifice
To the humus of the future.
A blackbird -
Yellow beak at the ready -
Hops and pecks, hops and pecks
Through the mulchy dregs
Seeking some unwitting worm
Who, unbidden and unknowing
Will be transformed from
Composting assistant
To blackbird dinner
In the coincidence of location and beak.
Wet (Lay Me Down in a Bed of Water)
I take a sip
Crystal clarity
Belies the richness
And multitude
Each drop contains
Take the lifetimes required
To count the total
H2O molecules held within
The history of its cycles
Encompasses all histories
And I may savour
The taste
Of all that has been
Both the glorious and the banal
In each mouthful
