Forgotten is just a word nonetheless

My Brother (returning to The Creek)

my mother’s house is an empty chair

the rain refuses to visit her roof

rooms of childhood draw final breaths

and the echo of my true brother falls

to silence in the corner of the yard

the only hope for me stuck with anger

refusing to witness the wounds of me

is to go to go to be with the water

to walk with my feet bare my body

stripped to the bones that carry me

my brother lies in clay floats with air

he is waiting for a sign of bravery from me

to quietly sit wait re-member memories

accept my fears and call to him

I love you I miss you – forgive me

Speaking Reflection: Being and Thereafter as in or despite Before and After

Loss and death are powerful as they are are enough to halt us half way there even before we are aware.

                                                       Only we don't stop just stutter step

or so to be certain we comprehend: death is death loss is loss wreck

is wreck.

                Remember then what we've forgotten or have tried to forget.

Patience tries once and twice and more. We let impatience be its own

but it fails us once again. Not due to impatience obviously but due to

lack of sense handily employed by so called patience--duly foreswarn--

to be loyal.

Forgotten is just a word nonetheless, as always, handy as poems go.

Younger brothers are loyal once in a while if you don't mind forbearance.

                      They are there as always, needful of example and leadership even though you've not been a peerless one, you'll do.

Halt then. It's too late to be careful. Prime time is never for you. Time

is just time. A moment too soon. Poem, story, verb, feeling, la de daah.

What's needed more is never too late. For you none too soon is prime.

Always Shadow

reading your words

I become obsessed

Simon’s shadows of

sadness and darkness 

men afraid to be 

with light with air

men only boys

know them be them

skin scoured raw

they drew blood 

for kin and country

were packed into boxes

wood beaten with nails

the fate of lies sealed

They Say It's Never Too Late to Catch Up/Yeah, It Is True True

Always us always never too late no second chance that's the work

before we know it today is today and now is now.

                                                                                     For that, we are

ready as ever ever was. Fate has no chance, not even for repetition.

Never mind is too late to be forsaken.

                                                                 Hmmm is too soon this time

because trepidation is not circumstance but a calculation and a need.

For we are bound after all by kin who seek to be like we are: wary and 

worn by the time we finish stitching the final lace strand on the pack.

We are bound by duty that beholds us commonly together as sisters, 

brothers, children of children bound to be loyal with human love. And

a bond more everlasting than repetitive but generous and ready to sing

the blues into merriment, that dance our sorrows into tidings glad.

This is the moment then.

                                           For tippy toed gentleness and limber tapping with our toes.

                        This is when poetry invents new smiles and giddiness and overcomes overcomes overcomes us beyond belief as we surrender happily to smiles upon smiles upon smiles.

                                                                                             Dark and silence

are memories too for sure. And for sure is our certainty for sure and for sure.