SHADOWS

Once I pretended to be tall.

Soon, my family caught up.

Shorties all, save my grandfather.

The towering man who lived in absentia.

We said hello – year after year.

He spoke to us through the frame he had been given in his home;

a home sold to shelter his brood.

He came to life annually on a leaf laden with his passions and sins.

Shadows.

They make us long, dwarf our souls.

HOME

Signposts move, spaces morph:

Familiarity is a fine stranger to befriend.

FAREWELL

Here was consumed by reality

Memories grew up

And then there were none

TATA

Tears I have not seen in my lifetime
rolled down his eyes
when we said hello.

A man so strong, so proud, so loving,
reduced to a bunch of tubes.

He almost lost his voice to cancer,
but he willed himself to speak on.
When his heart failed him again, and again,
he ordered it had to beat.
And shot himself with insulin to live.

Now,
His words refuse to take life,
his eyes try to articulate them,
even as they weep in pain, and helplessness.

He lifts his feeble hand,
bound by bandages,
to draw a line across his forehead.
It's all written in our destiny, he seems to say.

I used to be cynical ,
when told destiny is a fact.
Am not sure I believe it exists, still.
Maybe.

The arrogance and optimism of youth have finally bid me good bye.
Am trying to hold on to faith, and trust.
I wish I could hold on to you too Tata,
but I know you must go.
Tata, go in peace.

PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

Happiness --
You herald your arrival.

I warm the oven,
load the CD, sing along.
Nose dusted with flour,
fingers slicing the happy dough.

And then you leave
for a breath of ...
...

I try
to understand.
In parts I do.
But I cannot fill the jigsaw.
The gaping holes suck me in.

Back again.
You slip in
as I sip my morning tea
dreading the day -- once mine -- that lays in store.
You come, You go.

One strand of grey
in a shock of black.
Was.
Grey spreads.

Years lived in a splash of colours
but defined by monochrome.
Spent in search of you.
Grey says grow up.
You are not mine to seek.

But.
In you I trust.
Stay ...
someday.

FATHER TIME

York

Spring 2007

I

I was,
then was modified.
She can leave,
but I remain.