December 2024
Bio Note: I just realised that I go with giant steps towards 90. Who wouldofthunk. Where did the time go, and now it's already almost Christmas again. Poetry keeps me young and allows me to take stock. I am beginning to miss so many of my friends.
Fifty
I invited for my half-century celebration
full of the knowledge that I was young
and strong, and in my prime.
A milestone, an achievement.
The kids happy and shining, the house
full of my friends and friends of friends.
I forgot that those invited would bring
their significant others.
I forgot that those invited would bring
presents.
I forgot that my house was not given
to growing bigger according to need.
End of April, already full of promise.
We opened the back doors to the deck
to make room for the overspill.
The Japanese cherry tree had just
begun to blossom, the world
was turning green.
I knew that there were daffodils
growing under the laburnum.
And the light flooded out into the garden
and so did the laughter and the music,
and everyone had to rub shoulders for lack
of space, forced into close contact—
it had become too chilly outside.
I stayed on the deck and closed
the back doors behind me for a moment.
There was a silence full of small voices.
The cold stars were clinking glasses,
I heard the nightbirds sing.
Things whispered in the ivy,
frogs glgged in the pond.
A sudden woosh of cold air made me shiver.
I Killed a Snake
Still travelling up from my hands to my arms
that soft-hard rubbery resistance of its long, twitching body.
And then there were the eyes. Did they beg?
I think not; they looked accusing rather, resigned to a human’s
atavistic rejection, the shudder on seeing the archetype
of seduction, be it benign or venomous.
It had sunned itself in the middle of the blue tarpaulin
that covered the pool this early spring.
It kept its distance. Still, the sight of that meter-long
unassuming visitor shocked me, but my unease was controlled
by reason. The creature was far away and, besides,
unassailable. I still can’t walk on water.
That gray-brown, hose-like thing had slithered to the kitchen door
without my consent or knowledge.
And there it was, daring me to enter my own house.
The spade, readied for turning earth in this season of sowing
was soon in my hands, and—crying ‘MURDERER’ all the while—
I hacked at the snake’s neck hoping to sever it from its body
in a primal cry of fear, guilt and aggression, an ur-instinct of survival.
And as it twitched and looked me in the eyes, I hacked and hacked.
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