Holiday insomnia makes me think of a friend in chronic pain
Not a wink of sleep on the lake shore
after a six-hour drive
With the wind, it seems, trying to rip
our tent open and let in the turbulent sky
I find myself praying you would find sleep
in your tiny apartment, excruciating pain
and the somnolent cat your only company
My sleepless night seems long from here
But there is an end to it, or to the wind
Where is the end to the pain
that is your uninvited companion
through the dark and light hours?
I would gladly forfeit my night’s rest
if cat snores could be your only disturbance
Your first thought (Sonnet I)
Tell me dear kingfisher what you think of
When you rise to the dawning of day
Do you contemplate war, the bombs going off
In far-flung locations, smoke billowing grey
And invading the lungs of the populace?
Where terror and fear are the daily bread
Of those caught in a conflict malicious?
Where all they can fathom on waking is dread,
destruction and death? Or do you look
At the morning with hunger renewed and
Your eye on the waters; lake, river, brook,
For sweet morsels that life will extend
With no worries that evening won’t come?
Is the present the place you call home?
When? (Sonnet II)
What does it feel like, knowing, if you wake
That death will come today, or if not, soon?
Its stench is all around; you cannot fake
a certainty you’ll live till afternoon
When will the next wave come, the bombardment
that may steal your life away in the suck
of an explosion, that brutal moment
that arrives with little warning, come to pluck
breath from your lungs, like picking bloody
berries from a bush of red abundance
Leaving silence; those remaining broody
for the presence blasted into absence
But comforted that you no longer wonder
When death will rain down its savage thunder
Sit
After Rilke
And if you should find yourself where the soft grass
growing by the slow stream bids you pause
do not spurn the invitation to sit
If the questions you are living weigh heavy
lay them down beside you
Perhaps fashion them into a pillow
to cushion your head while you luxuriate
in the lush softness, and listen
to whatever accompanies the silence
And if, while you are pausing, eyes,
ears open, there should be
a heron in the shallows, watch it, or a
kingfisher on an overhead wire.
Taking care not to intrude, observe
their shared practice of patience, how
the answers to their days ’few questions
may arrive as its reward. Then, when you
are ready, test the weight of your load
Mind the gap
The gap is 20-odd metres of love and deep concern. I’ve seen the woman I’ll pass when the green figures appear on our respective lights. But my emotions are for the happy black Labrador strutting, tail whipping the morning air, around a square patch of tarmac beside the yellow light pole. There’s no leash in sight, and my waiting mind wanders to imaginations of motorised mayhem on the crossing. She calls the dog closer. It sits, adoring canine smile on the face watching hers. And reassurance finds me. But at green, the black bundle of barely contained joy is on a collision course with me, two lanes of moving traffic a metre to my right looming noisily. Gap closing, she taps her leg, speaks a soft command that draws her faithful sidekick closer, and we pass, pristinely untroubled. I should have had more trust in their relationship, the unquestioning kind they share. There’s a lesson in every ordinary moment.
Grant Shimmin is a South African-born poet who has lived in New Zealand for 23 years and has a passion for humanity, the natural world and their intersection. He is an editor/reader for Does it Have Pockets?, where he was also previously published, and has work published/forthcoming at Roi Faineant Press, The Hooghly Review, Bull, Dreich, Querencia Press, Amethyst Review and elsewhere.
No comments:
Post a Comment