For Opa

I knew you a generation of loss,

But have not spun my thread

To plug the same pains;

Nor braced on my fingers,

The root to stem the same hunger.

I knew you a generation of loss,

That lived or perished

At the turning of the winds;

That held court with a devil,

Our hands built to being.

I knew you a generation of loss,

And have known the same skies,

High and clear and open,

Not mourned by gas or fire,

Nor crowded with the newly lost.

I knew you a generation of loss,

But have not fought the same fight,

And have not felt the same losing,

And have not seen the heart of man,

Unwind his brothers to the soil.

Sonnet On Days Of Change

A petal hung its jowl,

Weighted by the rain,

And I wasn’t sure who was braver,

Steaming like rockfall

Through the life we once wore:

Where a robe no longer fits,

Where cheap fabric has worn to the muscle.

A flower shook its stem,

To loose persistent guests,

And I wasn’t as cavalier,

Sealing the walls of our own past in plastic coffins,

Never to be warmed with life again.

            Nor did faith step to plug the flow,

            Or time rise back from days below.

 

As Distant Dark Nears

One doesn’t find it impossible:

An ear held to the waves,

If kept still for long enough,

If held strong against the current

That breaks and rebuilds, ceaselessly, angrily,

Can hear the ringing,

Far into the deep waters,

As far and dark as a coastal shelf,

Between which all manner of life bellows and drowns.

Sonnet Amongst Flowers, Storms

 Among the flowers, my young muse steals

            With daring, darting, glancing skips,

Of every hue she makes a meal

            And naught but laughter courts her lips.

We jaunt atop a foreign mount,

            So close we knew it hardly real,

Where pansies burst of heavens fount

            And bloom with shades that bring to heel:

All that a man could claim his own,

            While beauty stirs the springtime bees,

He might hardly hold where he may roam,

            His only fear: that it should cease.

But treetops bend, as catch the eyes,

A darker hue now claims the skies.