point between parent and child
is lava crumble,
wind across memory loss
is lava crumble,
wind across memory loss
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Adoption
Construct of the wordless poem –
emotion and sound – accordion
quietly played after midnight
in cool, humid basement,
concrete walls still leeching odours –
1959 Ontario summer
everything different –
not today when my bladder
wakes me and it’s almost three.
There are no thoughts
of death, though death
often watches me sleep,
then wanders away,
dances through street lights,
gives the finger to the moon,
deconstructs my memories,
which have exceeded
their best before dates.
But this is poem,
unsubstantiated by fact,
deconstructed by time,
left wandering by deserted harbor,
waif of the greater saga,
orphan to the beginning,
though middle and end
continue the debate
over ownership in the court
of where to belong.
Construct of the wordless poem –
emotion and sound – accordion
quietly played after midnight
in cool, humid basement,
concrete walls still leeching odours –
1959 Ontario summer
everything different –
not today when my bladder
wakes me and it’s almost three.
There are no thoughts
of death, though death
often watches me sleep,
then wanders away,
dances through street lights,
gives the finger to the moon,
deconstructs my memories,
which have exceeded
their best before dates.
But this is poem,
unsubstantiated by fact,
deconstructed by time,
left wandering by deserted harbor,
waif of the greater saga,
orphan to the beginning,
though middle and end
continue the debate
over ownership in the court
of where to belong.
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Birth Marks
What do I owe the past.
I barely remember landfall in Halifax,
train ride through Quebec cedars,
arrival in Kitchener.
Family was a hint of somewhere else,
three slabs of history on a plate of Slovakia,
the Ukraine and Germany. The sun
glances off stories of when and where.
This week at work, I watched a woman
walk past the security hut, tattoo bright
on her left shoulder blade. It was
a blue butterfly, entangled in flowers.
I imagined her making a statement,
how she was unique – to the point where,
were she found dead in a Toronto
alley, her identity would be sealed
by that blue tattoo. My father once
attended an engagement party for
a very good friend of mine, my mother
away, visiting European relatives
and he told everyone who asked,
that the tattoo on his left hand,
the hand that stretched out naturally
in greeting, that the tattoo was
his mother’s name. He smiled as
everyone looked and passed comments
about the depths of his love for his
mother, the East Worker who, having
abandoned his home in the arms of the invaders,
never returned, though my mother says
he cried for a very long time when he
received the letter about my grandfather’s death.
What do I owe the past.
I barely remember landfall in Halifax,
train ride through Quebec cedars,
arrival in Kitchener.
Family was a hint of somewhere else,
three slabs of history on a plate of Slovakia,
the Ukraine and Germany. The sun
glances off stories of when and where.
This week at work, I watched a woman
walk past the security hut, tattoo bright
on her left shoulder blade. It was
a blue butterfly, entangled in flowers.
I imagined her making a statement,
how she was unique – to the point where,
were she found dead in a Toronto
alley, her identity would be sealed
by that blue tattoo. My father once
attended an engagement party for
a very good friend of mine, my mother
away, visiting European relatives
and he told everyone who asked,
that the tattoo on his left hand,
the hand that stretched out naturally
in greeting, that the tattoo was
his mother’s name. He smiled as
everyone looked and passed comments
about the depths of his love for his
mother, the East Worker who, having
abandoned his home in the arms of the invaders,
never returned, though my mother says
he cried for a very long time when he
received the letter about my grandfather’s death.
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