we travelled south
east and west
each taking a bone
to plant and tend
we grew great forests
gave them names
like laughter, love
tundra, teal
there were swans and lakes
hills and streams
swallows flew
dreams took place
and then one summer
years from then
I caught my breath
inhaled again
and there before me
on the shore
a skiff, a whale boat
nothing more
we went north
where the whaling ships
once hunted – found them
rotting like beached leviathans
and on the shore
rocks and caribou antlers
great spikes seaweed draped
the blue grey background
inviting only to the brave
who would venture out
between the droplet islands
your wake watched
by black eyed monsters
and banshee winds in
howling caves
I never knew my father
his soul was cast adrift
when I was a child
but out there
and up here
I can still feel the roughness
of his hand
in mine
when I close my own
black eyes
one day
when I am dead and gone
I will come visit you in your house
so listen out
for the sound of my footsteps
crunching the gravel on your drive
the squeak of the swing seat
when I take a rest on your porch
I will warm my bones under your southern sun
before opening the screen door with a rattle
look up and see me standing there
as if all our yesterdays
had come again
you will take me to your room
and I will fill your body with heat
the cicadas will talk like typewriters
the moon will wax lyrical
and I will leave through the open window
one day
when I am dead and gone
I will come visit you in your house
waking from a bloodbath of dreams
a machete stains red across the sky
how the mind does nightly wander
in silent screams and heinous crimes
the morning comes in pools of grief
a relief to be a survivor once more
but oh at what price we turn the leaf
of life’s weary pages we adore
My father was thirty eight when he died
I was barely seven
Mother took me to Spain to ease the pain
Help the healing and never forget
His death had crushed her heart
Part of mine too at the time
The soft white sand slipped through our toes
The cloudy night covered the stars
Transformed them into lost diamonds in the dark
My sunburnt skin itchy beneath my souvenir shirt
And then the rain came straight from the heavens
Her sad face and wet hair a sight I would never forget
I found a tiny shell and she held my hand
The castaway clasped between our palms
A momento mori of what was to come
For mother and son
For years after she would take me walking in the rain
Walking in the rain with Elaine we would sing
Just like the song
The tiny shiny shell always came too
Clutched between our dripping hands
Sometimes warm
Sometimes frozen
One day she tried to wake me from my teenage dreams
But I was growing tired of walking with Elaine in the rain
So she went on her own
And never returned
After searching for several days they found her body
She was bloated and floating face down in the local river
Partly wedged under a fallen tree
Somewhat hidden from public view
There was rumour it was murder
But I knew just how much her life had been blighted by grief
Since Dad had passed away exactly ten years before
We drove to the Chapel of Rest in Uncle Don’s white van
And there she was
All peaceful looking in her long wooden box
Her hands folded neatly across her chest
Like a sleeping martyr I guessed
I reached into my pocket and found the tiny shiny shell
I kissed it gently for a lingering moment and lovingly
Leaning over the coffin pushed it under her cold fingers
Safely wedged in the palm of her right hand
The hand that held mine when we went walking in the rain together
Here
Take this Mum, I whispered
And when you meet with Dad
Wherever that might be
Take a walk in the sunshine
And maybe think of me
I rescued a wasp from near certain death at my own hands
– an arbitrary spur of the moment act of compassion
which changed nothing other than my own perception of life
– saved me dealing with the murderous taste of contrition.
Henry Alberto was the eldest son of a family from El Salvador
– determined to finish school he refused to join the local gangs
but they came for him after his graduation and 18th birthday
– shot him dead in retribution all within the same ghastly week.
I could have swatted the wasp and left its body to whither
– annoying buzzing unpredictable stinging nuisance that it was
and besides, there will always be another to take its place
– this random act of killing is disturbingly too easy.
Luis Padillo was a Navy chaplain caught up in rebellious carnage
– as sniper bullets flew in Venezuela he tended to the dying
selflessly risking his own life to offer soldiers the last rites
– death is the choice of the devil in our subconscious.
I took a soft cloth and trapped the wasp against the window
– the power of the executioner, finger on the trigger,
resisting the urge to squeeze the living juices from its body
– hostage released on the whim of the freedom giver.
Henry Alberto’s mother cradles the photo of her dead son
– overwhelming grief consumes her troubled refugee existence.
Father Luis Padillo may or may not have ended his days in Florida
– I have no idea how we should end this deathly poetic dichotomy.
(two images that came my way this week – The iconic Priest and the Dying Soldier by Héctor Rondón Lovera from 1962 / Henry Alberto photographed on his graduation day and held by his mother Juana, taken by Patrick Tombola for a Sunday Times magazine article about Central American migrants fleeing poverty and gang violence to Mexico and, with luck, America).
