The care of my child, my boy, over seven winters long ago.
Unforgotten, embedded as they say these days, sewn into this
heart,
silver threads knotted by his final thumbs-up in sweet defiance
away from pain not bestowed but earned
and freed in the wee transparent pad of skin and umber eyes
a bird, up, as he goes.
Now. A man who
assaulted the tempest as the boy was leaving.
My new love, my old love.
He fights what he sees within.
He is the warrior who rode flying ships to places of sand
and ministered to the bloodied.
Now, confused unwillingly, he is truthful about the
fear. They have found something
that may help. A shot for the light colonel.
But it is April and in the winds bluffing their way down
Five Mile Mountain this tall man walks northward
and prepares for the clouds.
(With the boy, in his
fragile infancy, another man said I must be the strong one.
That man tried, and he
did love the boy, but we were too young.
So I was the strong
one.
Until the boy was gone
and I could do it no more.
They say I wronged the man in a tunnel of sorrow, and I did.)
Suns and moons have passed now. The gulf and hills have
sailed.
The comet’s foreboding of the lost sad time has ended.
But they speak of meteors.
So here we are, planting trees in a pasture, the aged
conquistador and I.
We build walls only to climb. He pulls rocks
out of No-Name Creek for the salamander.
He once rose early to push through the day; I rose inwardly.
We worked but also played
and took the big boat ne
Vagabond Shoes through unknown waters (for us)
and met sailors and ladies
and a Rub Rail of the funny ones.
We drank gin from plastic cups and looked for the green line
at the edge of the Sound
as the ragged heat rose from the burning ground
tasting the oysters before they were cooked.
This love roars into a room. He does that still, at times,
not always.
This love is fierce alone and in friendly waters.
This love knows me, maddens me, pushes me, coddles me.
Yet he fades now.
It is time to give care again, to remember lessons from the
bedside of the boy and
to slay the soldiers of my misspent nature
to reach the warrior
where he is today.
I have to ask: Is he vanishing? He wonders, too.
Morning: He reads the
newspaper, teases the old dog, pinches the old wife.
Outdoors: All day –
at the paddock, at the barn, on the orange tractor,
but rain dims his splendor quickly.
Evening: Nightfall
brings the warrior’s game, to try to remember things once and now.
To clobber the onslaught
before the bandits slip unannounced over the red line that
is his mind.
This is a good week,
and the pills and shots may help.
We’ll keep these days as bounty on a grassy hill,
as fresh soft-knots on the bow,
as lovers in the terrace shadows as the birds take cover
before darkness falls.
The warrior takes all comers, for now.
He’ll tend to his own thoughts valiantly
until he needs to reach for mine.
