Running Away

I can't say for sure that I ever planned to run away as such, but, as a boy, I often thought about taking up permanent abode in my tree fort. It sounds very quaint now, closer to Tom Sawyer than to any child living today, but with a stash of crab apples, sorrel leaves and an occasional foray back to our kitchen to pinch some of my mother's rhubarb tart, I could do very nicely.

Tree fort was something of a misnomer; there was no fortification, but there was plenty of cover, and with a arsenal of stones and a catapult, I could defend my position indefinitely. And, as for composing a poem.......well that's just poetic license. 

Running Away

He ran in his Sunday clothes across Casey’s field, past Bully’s Acre, out over the line to the tree above the stream. Climbed it and sat all afternoon among the leaves’ shivery dampness, on frozen branches, under clouds bulging rain.

With crab-apples falling, dumbed time, to the grass below, he promised he’d stay there forever. Let them come, swarm beneath the tree, he’d not breathe; no matter how they called, he would not answer. He composed a poem:

There is a place for me

up among the branches

of an crab-appled lord,

ivy-draped; golden treasures

mix with stars of leaves.

There inside the elbow

with autumn breezes

close by shoulder,

quiet as an owl,

I long to be.

But two hours later, when the houses’ yellow windows were calling tea-time across the fields, sorrel leaves and crab apples were promising a particularly sour tomorrow; since he was very hungry, he went home. 

Passage

        

We were lovers;

now I'm off

and you're packed away;

you folded up small.

So with curving spine

and arms belting knees

tight under chin, I roll on;

a wheel from an accident.

Ahead there is space,

to wander in,

to kick up dust;

space where fires won't burn.

The baby in the tree

The baby in the tree

is screaming.

High above the pathway

near the black tips

of the sycamore branches

he is gaping,

white membraned luminous.

How did he get there?

He blew there in the wind;

it took him

like a flag from his cot

till he was stretched

across the boughs

like the wings of a bat.

And who sees him?

I do;

all his hopeless writhing,

too high for the passerby.

And his screams:

too high,

too high for the passerby.

Breathing

We take it for granted. And then comes dying, we stand around the bed watching the work that is breathing. And you think my father is dying and he must work; work harder than he has all his life. How merciless is death that makes you toil to pass through its gate.

Breathing

Now my father's life

is breathing.

Heavy work.

He has already slipped away

to be alone

while we outside

mark every breath

like lap timers.

Now come the spaces:

a breath

is an isolated thing.

Finally one breath

arrives alone.

I feel a soul has left,

but just then

I see, so clearly,

it was hope

that slipped out of the room.