Monday 26 August 2013

236/365

 
I didn't know
For sale signs on front lawns
could suck the breath from ones bones
 
I thought
I had done my letting go
in small increments of
grey strokes of paint
and cardboard boxes packed with
"clutter"
 
If home is where the heart is
What do you do
when you've poured your heart into a home?
And then its time to go
 
How do you gather the places
 where your boys drilled holes
into hardwood floors
took first steps
plugged toilets with pretend cars
 
Is it possible
to neatly box it all up?
firsts
and lasts
angry dents made from thrown chairs
the hurts and hurtmaking
the loves and lovemaking
 
I didn't know what I didn't know.
 


Friday 23 August 2013

Tuesday 20 August 2013

Magpie Grief

He stood in the middle of the road in front of me
The broken body of his love
in a pile of black and white feathers
on the gravel side
As bold as a magpie always is,
Letting me choose if he should live or die
in his corvid grief
 
I was struck once again
at the many faces of grief
 
The big man that stood in my office
filling the space behind his dark sunglasses with tears
the quivering hairs on his mustache betraying him
 
The mother with birdlike bones
that I hugged too hard, forgetting how raw a body feels
with a soul stripped bare
 
The deep vat of silence that we dip into
Jars of ashes left in cupboards
Cold bodies left stiff in morgues,
as if to pretend that death can somehow be controlled
 
And so I aimed my wheels to pass over him
Spoke to him in the space of my car as if he could hear me
that it was not my place to choose for him
between life or death
and over I went
 
After the wind had stopped ruffling his iridescent feathers
and I was able to catch my breath once more
Away he flew
 


Wednesday 14 August 2013

223/365

 
And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears. 
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears. 
 Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.
-Mumford & Sons