The greatest gift
Whether given or received
Is no different
Than any other day
Love
Is no different
Than any other day
Love
I remember days long past
Of sunshine and calm
Depths still clear
At forty feet
The rod held
Expectantly
In your son’s hands
Paddle in yours
The strokes
A gentle
Powerful
Grace
You didn’t care for fishing
But I did
So out we went
My youth
A stream of summer memories
New England lakes
Bass and wallabies
A pickerel here and there
The perch and sunnies
Disdainfully thrown back
Paddling today
On a perfect day
I reflect on those times
And the times that would follow
Times of storms and dark clouds
Murky shallows
When we were not always
So gentle with each other
Awkward
Sometimes graceless
The depth of you
Forever unreachable
But still I knew you
As the father who’d take me out
For no more than the pleasure
Of my pleasure
That is
I knew
Always
That you loved me
You’ve been gone now
For longer than I ever had you
For your eulogy
I used the metaphor
Of the missing wingman
A natural for the pilot father
But on this day
Of sunshine and calm
Of depth and clarity
I notice a second paddle
Laying against the empty seat
Wishing your hands were upon it
So that once again
We could take on this task of living
With the harmony of paddling
Together
No flutter on the water
No ripple in the wind
No fish or whale
To breech the sea
No gull on wing
To cry the air alive
No colour falls to eye
In this world
Of nothingness
In stillness
Drifted I
Aboard a ship
No sails were set
Devoid of all intent
My mind awash
In listless thought
No acts of love
From feckless heart
Yet all the while
And deep below
This ship becalmed
My spirit spare
A current
Ran unseen
It swirled
And tossed
It mustered
Forces unbeknown
Which bubbled to the top
This beauty
This pain
This anguish
This love
This cacophony of being
That is I
That is experience
That is action
Tension of light and dark
Tension of right and wrong
Never grey
Never muted
That mud of fear
That mud of anger
Gripping at my heart
Gripping at my mind
But I will not
Go under
But I will not
Lie down
Or die
In the silence
Of living
Without venture
I remember
And I write
Words seeking time
In some future dream
When the Flanders torch
Shall not be passed
We will no longer ask
The young to die
For causes wrought
Upon the lie
Of righteousness
A time when poppies bloom
In their rightful spring
Not this remorseful
Autumnal rite
No longer red
No blood be spilled
But lovely white
Our peace fulfilled
Just as I cannot know the light
Without darkness
So too I cannot know the darkness
Without light
I thought I knew the darkness well
When I was caught in it
As it touched me
As it coursed through me
I believed the darkness was me
Standing in the light
I sense the true nature of my being
Radiating this warm glow
I have not emerged from the darkness
I have shed it
Like a cloak
Beneath which the light
Has always burned
Will always burn
Has always kept the darkness
In its dark
I am in this world
And I am not
I have this body
And I do not
I am present
I am nowhere
I am here
But not
I am present
I am a ghost
This is trauma
This is dissociation
Like me
Like orange
Not range
Not fringe
Not forage
Nor porridge
Though all tinker with
The tongue and the ear
The elusive rhyme
The elusive me
Laws which I do well to heed
If my art is to succeed
Nature I do not exploit you
Nor wrest the brushes from your hand
It’s not my mind to alter your decision
But offer you my humble vision