River Walk Winter

There’s form
in the abstinence
of absence. White space
where the bent branch
for years brushed against
passing river water.
In sheared time.

I wasn’t witness to the cold
moment of severance. Snow
throughout day and night.
Cat o’ nine tails crying – wind
from the American center.
And this river escaping
its banks. Running free.
Revving dangerous ice.

With children, between one day
and today emotional weather
changes. Unseen elements
suddenly strut the boulevard
of parent and child relations. I’m
amazed I don’t recognize
I communicate with fable.
A limb of societal norm
has disappeared.
White space floods relationship.

Between words there is
enough room for a universe
to flicker and find life.
There are streets to walk.
Store fronts to browse. Parks
to explore. There’s time to watch
night descend from
the chariot of sun. There’s time to
find a room above
a bakery. Time to shop
for furniture. Arrange clothes
in the closet. Iron shirts
against the need
of looking for work. Cook
a meagre supper.
There’s time to sleep.
And awaken from restless
white seas.

Between you and I
a universe of words
flourishes. Frail words
in a soil once tilled now
abandoned to weeds
and weak promises.
Emotions in cruise control.
The safety of repetition.
Silverware in its place. Cups
filled with filtered water
and futures fabricated
in China by slave labour.

And all the words fall
into the white hole.
The missing. The corners
of conversations and time
which we could never fill
yet always felt
were so important that
we could not continue without them.