Still Born
 

Why did the old woman leave the fire, I see you wonder? So abruptly, gone.

There they were you see, speaking of their suns,
light in the eye, pain in the groin,

the old man two doors down leaning on the wall by the stair
groaning for 'Absolum' my son Absolum, the young man Absolum
Caught by the hair in a tree and slaughtered
by his father's friend,

and Terry's haunting from the future, or a sideways slip
into another universe where our children, separate and part
-for ever- of the way we are; half of the brain forever visiting
and skrying, sensing where they are and how they be..

what do you think of us old folk by the fire, shaken suddenly by
passion invisible to outward eye? Old skirmishes, old wiles, old cunning.
and suddenly we cry out "a child, a little child will lead them" knowing
that it is not in us to be, not now, a prince of peace, a comforter;
that we cannot now be big enough to be children,
to be such a child
to sing the grey song in the cradle of rocking love,
endlessly, endlessly rocking in the cradle of love.

What do you think, boy? looking at me with puzzled eye? The old woman
raves, feeling the pain of the fathers in her sinew, searching the young man's
arrow of desire? Look for the clean world, the world of passionate
belonging, being part of it all and knowing what we know?
You think we do not feel it too?

Child. I had many sons, and of them all, they only ever always tell the tale of one.
There's always one. The one that has you walking in the night, fretting
over nothing, demanding, questioning, breaking, sorting, whining,
getting the wrong end of every stick and hitting the dog with it.

Interrupts the teaching of the elders to ask the wrong question and
bellowing that they're keeping secrets or they cannot answer him.

Baffling boys. Boys who never seem to get it right so that we leave the
lads who walk on calmly, learning, doing, being, neglect praise of the
praiseworthy and
follow with our eyes and longing
this one, thorny lad who makes us laugh when we should correct him and
throw up our hands and run barefoot to the beach to rescue him.

Iesu child! I see you look at me and wonder if I hate or love the boy,
and truly, I don't know. I think sometimes I never will, but that's all
gone
the time is gone, and many a night will come and go before you know
the end and how it came about, the end that bites me even now and makes
me
hesitate to hear the song of angels, glorifying peace.

He was my last, and not full term, and so I thought him dead. My adam,
still born on the breast, and soft and butterfat and silent. Far too
small and lips like cupid's bow, about to part and never did.

and I crouched on my haunches rocked him to my heart and bled
moaning inside like some great wounded beast, and felt
hopeless and helpless while they came, great wounded boys, my sons,
bewildered that I could not turn to them
as if the dead one were the only son, the only one, the first born
dear to me.

Their father came, and drew the child from me
tenderly, and wrapped in him with my torn hair, a feather, tiny
tokens from his brother kin, a little rock, a seashell,  bright puriri
in a shawl and held me while we walked,
down to the seashore, into the waves, to set the small, pathetic bundle
in the sea.

Why do you interrupt? Why stop me?

Would it had been so. The salt whipped hair which stung my eyes that day
was less than all the rest
I could not even wipe my nose for the rain ridden wind,
but it was better so, should have remained so

loss and the gull crying
unable to come to land..
 
 

(C) Copyright 1997
ALYS
All Rights Reserved



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