The Poetry Marathon

The son has gone, the weeds grow
The daughter looks up,

discovers the weeds have become tall as trees
growing in a disarray,
through cracks,
along the foundations,
and reaching over the property line

She smiles at the sunlight passing through the leaves
– impish beauty.

You’re fastening the buttons one by one,
or are you unfastening them?

On the edge of your bed, I’m mid-urging
– to what, I can’t say, I’ve lost track.
You have been the master of self-government,
but there you are.
It’s a complicated match.

Up on the mountain,
far beyond the foothills
where nimbus clouds hide the cliffs from sight,
meet me, darling.

She came to me some months ago
28.6km – a short night flight
She wore a burnt orange shift
and found me at a white banquet table, on a white chair
She said, as she always did, “I love you, darlin’”

I woke up crying
White sheets in a white room

I went to her some weeks ago
28.6km – bad traffic on a Friday afternoon
She was so thin, ever silent but aware
in the “Cadillac of wheelchairs”
A regal edge in her upturned chin, stubborn glare

After an hour or so, she was taken to bed
I put my hand on her head,

She flinched.

Have you stopped to look closely
at the rolled-out insides of a crushed squirrel?
I did the other day. They were pale red, a mess, mundane.
I would have lingered longer,
but for my companion.
She was impatient for lunch.

The moon sees, comes closer
He sleeps
When he wakes, he wakes to splendour

She is brilliance

Eat your frogs so that by early evening you can delight in tomatoes, prepping them for winter in jars, the way gramma taught you. Together you sliced them, chasing the diced bits around the cutting boards like small children chase ducklings.

Take your raincoat, and venture into the time after the first summer rain, see how the streets steam and the evening light fills the rising. Don’t hesitate, the rain will come again and you will lose your window.

See your daughter’s dirty elbows and listen closely as she speaks of how the dirt came to coat them. Splash and laugh as you bathe her with warm soapy water before bed.

Eat your frogs so that you don’t feel you have stolen time from work to live. Then, you will be able to rest awhile. Your life will be made by these tiny moments.

Enjoy this fantastic morning. The sun hits the lake just so and sets it sparkling. Never forget it, though the zoos overrun their gates, roaring, and the crops cannot support our devouring. Death’s at an end.

So glad you are here
– The hideout of my life,
still waiting on the day

Not sure what you did
– The hideout of my world,
a little sad

The night we would have
– The hideout, the dawn light,
the night is the only way

And in that world there would be two suns, setting in two-step.

NB: Written ad lib using predictive text on my iPhone and then edited for a semblance of sense.

I am more fully alive in the heat of this fire!
Much was learned, hard fought, lost.

I run alone for a prize foolhardy
I go alone to the lavish trees
I race, cramp, hardly breathe
I sink beneath branches green

And what is it you would have me do?
Come back, penitent, to you.