Moving
(for BKB)
Our kitchen clock has ticked,
time to pack up,
time to clear out,
cardboard boxes,
still life on the living room floor.
A full-stop.
Another paragraph written.
This house has done its work.
Candles burnt.
We were here,
a joint composition,
major and minor keys,
melody,
atonality,
dissonance,
harmony.
Unfinished symphony.
More than poetry.
Infinity of haiku
silent rooms between
characters.
On this stage,
we voiced parts,
fashioned scripts,
co-authors.
I’ve written my way through this house,
stepped beyond the deck,
out into a backyard
to trees and stream
underneath snow.
(Memories in parentheses)
Our kitchen, hearth of home,
chairs, a shrunken table,
furniture that made space grow.
Chicken noodle soup from a can,
potato chips,
grapes,
milk from a carton,
silver spoons,
our last supper.
I don’t know where we’ll eat tomorrow.
Never known the next phrase,
the sentence to come,
the chapter after this,
the story’s conclusion.
Like a hummingbird’s nest,
where we eat, drink, love, grow, sing,
shall we weave together twigs,
plant fibers,
bits of larch leaves,
shall we thread spider silk to bind our nest
together
and anchor
to another forked branch.
From Bath to Cork with baby Grace 