Time takes one hand and helps us up the stair,
Time draws the shades down on our clouding eyes;
…now, as always, light is all we have."
- "Tiepolo's Hound", Derek Walcott
[First you find what look like body feathers spry & sprouting.
You wonder, should I clip or shave or show? (Tattoos might work
as mask.) What if loved ones ask Please, take off your clothes,
grow old with me? Shrug. Look away.
What's that light flash pointing like auld Morse
on the horizon? The code of Earth O2: breathe change > transform.
The sky's the unknown new, now all
you see? What else but give it a go.
Lift from hard blows soft spreads, dry showerheads in office
youth eaters all; from history agents with shovels & ledgers
and guns of hunger in the night; the kite strings of comrades
shady from the sun, you'll fall! closer to us you belong!
Watch out for envy flying glass, the call back of fears
& jeers in tribe bluster; crows of bald pate ordure
freshening. In the colon doubt might spore but rupture will
self heal in Time's defragmenting blue bar.
Don't, don't look down: the sea oblivious salting! not whales,
groupers bilge pouting!
Hitchhiker once from bush through blood and oath,
just one clear day snips cords. Catch the first light
out and away you go, when you fly you'll know:
breath eyes wings, yes, I; new lang syne]-W.W.
HOME
nails your hands
to polished wood, points
a finger in your eyes red
with dreams of bridges which also
prevent your hands and eyes but, so far
unachieved, stengthen their pivot and stretch.
(from "Fabula Rasa" by Brian Chan)
LIGHT
doesn't spite all day long
those who disdain it at dawn but
your appointment with the sun is
one faith you must keep or else
the golden chance you won't know
you miss in every sorry cell
of a soul riddled with dark.
(from "Thief With Leaf" by Brian Chan)
A ROAD IN WINTER
The sky, however grey, is still the light
that mothered us and to which we must all
return to fill with other dreams like this
that, grey, moves nevertheless uphill and beyond.
(from "Fabula Rasa" by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 