By Way of Farewell
The Wheelchair
My brother toured in a chair
for exercise after his bone scan.
No accounting for the lessened
blood count, but to please his wife
and daughter he rode round the shops
in the chair, his liver shot,
knowing where the last stop
would be. Thoughts of my brother
wake me at night, not to pity him,
calmly approaching the necessary,
but in a little burst of fear.
I’m dreaming of a boy I knew
when I was a girl, our family then
our care, a kind brother, oh well,
except for the caterpillar down the neck
and some teasing. A brother concerned
that a teenaged girl shouldn’t walk
in dark streets alone at night. One
who brought a young mother
overwhelmed by duty and impossibility
a strawberry, from the field, and dipped
it in fresh cream. A brother encouraging
successes, silent on failures, a brother
with children and grandchildren,
who’s been there for them.
Philosophy tells me life is a line
and ends at a dot. Mine too.
So nothing surprises or offends
that now it’s Kennie’s turn. It will be mine.
But suddenly waking to the thought
of losing a good brother,
always there in the corners of my life,
feels too much like losing my own life, gnawed
by rats, one limb at a time.
Moonfleet
Hearing the casks of the rumrunners
beneath the church, squeezed into
the casket of the dead pirate, he found
the clue to the treasure. Forced up the cliff face
by the king’s men, he and a brave father
found the secret caves where they waited
the contraband’s ship. Trapped at the well
where the diamond was hidden, a sudden
trip felled the greedy guard, but the merchant
betrayed their innocence, stole their reward
and left them imprisoned until the storm
at sea tossed them ashore, their own shore,
one dead and one alive to find a happy end.
What to give an endangered brother? What to say?
Fond of history’s high adventures myself,
I send this story to my brother to take
him back to being a boy, loving adventure
and believing in good fortune. Before belief
or ideology there was a puckish hope.
It seemed like life might be anything, it seemed
as if adventures like these came with a cost
so trifling it didn’t weigh in. We’ve found the price
of everything since then, and the value. Maybe
we’re at the point where the waves toss us up
at home alive or dead, and all the years between
no longer matter, we’ve made the round trip back.
The insulin dose is too high
The pleasant civil voice thanks
me for the books sent, chooses
the “most fun” to read, comments
on the price of injections he gets
“just to be more comfortable”
as if this is a bit of a doubtful way
for so much money to be spent.
His little granddaughter runs to compare
the picture on the cover of one book
with the picture in their upstairs room.
The son with whom there’s some
distance has been there and they’ve had
a chance to talk. The doctor is expected
shortly, has been expected all day,
to regulate the insulin that’s gone
out of whack. He’d been getting it
in order but the dose is too high
when you don’t eat. What
is the response to disaster? I have
none. So we continue to talk
of the books, the pictures, the doctor
coming, the price of things. We
are not trained to speak of endings
or to cry, even for one another, leave
just a slight pause after “can’t eat”.
Goodbye, Kennie
My books of the Island
are there among his most
loved things.
Set on a table, without him,
his Bible, binoculars, bird book,
diary, book on Jerusalem,
photos with his wife,
are bereft.
When we walk to the shore at the foot
of Gascoigne Road and I stand before the All
in the cold spring wind,
I cannot tell
whether it is diminished by one, or
added to by one.
The sound of the breakers
follows us a way up the returning road,
and then, fleetingly,
in the top corner
of my mind,
I glimpse a smile and a wave.
The Wheelchair
My brother toured in a chair
for exercise after his bone scan.
No accounting for the lessened
blood count, but to please his wife
and daughter he rode round the shops
in the chair, his liver shot,
knowing where the last stop
would be. Thoughts of my brother
wake me at night, not to pity him,
calmly approaching the necessary,
but in a little burst of fear.
I’m dreaming of a boy I knew
when I was a girl, our family then
our care, a kind brother, oh well,
except for the caterpillar down the neck
and some teasing. A brother concerned
that a teenaged girl shouldn’t walk
in dark streets alone at night. One
who brought a young mother
overwhelmed by duty and impossibility
a strawberry, from the field, and dipped
it in fresh cream. A brother encouraging
successes, silent on failures, a brother
with children and grandchildren,
who’s been there for them.
Philosophy tells me life is a line
and ends at a dot. Mine too.
So nothing surprises or offends
that now it’s Kennie’s turn. It will be mine.
But suddenly waking to the thought
of losing a good brother,
always there in the corners of my life,
feels too much like losing my own life, gnawed
by rats, one limb at a time.
Moonfleet
Hearing the casks of the rumrunners
beneath the church, squeezed into
the casket of the dead pirate, he found
the clue to the treasure. Forced up the cliff face
by the king’s men, he and a brave father
found the secret caves where they waited
the contraband’s ship. Trapped at the well
where the diamond was hidden, a sudden
trip felled the greedy guard, but the merchant
betrayed their innocence, stole their reward
and left them imprisoned until the storm
at sea tossed them ashore, their own shore,
one dead and one alive to find a happy end.
What to give an endangered brother? What to say?
Fond of history’s high adventures myself,
I send this story to my brother to take
him back to being a boy, loving adventure
and believing in good fortune. Before belief
or ideology there was a puckish hope.
It seemed like life might be anything, it seemed
as if adventures like these came with a cost
so trifling it didn’t weigh in. We’ve found the price
of everything since then, and the value. Maybe
we’re at the point where the waves toss us up
at home alive or dead, and all the years between
no longer matter, we’ve made the round trip back.
The insulin dose is too high
The pleasant civil voice thanks
me for the books sent, chooses
the “most fun” to read, comments
on the price of injections he gets
“just to be more comfortable”
as if this is a bit of a doubtful way
for so much money to be spent.
His little granddaughter runs to compare
the picture on the cover of one book
with the picture in their upstairs room.
The son with whom there’s some
distance has been there and they’ve had
a chance to talk. The doctor is expected
shortly, has been expected all day,
to regulate the insulin that’s gone
out of whack. He’d been getting it
in order but the dose is too high
when you don’t eat. What
is the response to disaster? I have
none. So we continue to talk
of the books, the pictures, the doctor
coming, the price of things. We
are not trained to speak of endings
or to cry, even for one another, leave
just a slight pause after “can’t eat”.
Goodbye, Kennie
My books of the Island
are there among his most
loved things.
Set on a table, without him,
his Bible, binoculars, bird book,
diary, book on Jerusalem,
photos with his wife,
are bereft.
When we walk to the shore at the foot
of Gascoigne Road and I stand before the All
in the cold spring wind,
I cannot tell
whether it is diminished by one, or
added to by one.
The sound of the breakers
follows us a way up the returning road,
and then, fleetingly,
in the top corner
of my mind,
I glimpse a smile and a wave.