Thanks to Ivan, Pablo, Jorge... and Stuart [poem]

I have a fantasy that, somewhen in the future, we shall be able to move beyond the ugly and restrictive tribalist politics to which we have become inured, and find a way to allow poetry and science to guide us to what is true, and right.

Meanwhile, a prose poem (shortly to appear in Smoke) and a fleeting lament that seemed its pair.



Olympic Stadium 7th August 2012

My recently widowed mother stood among the flowers:

"This is the best day I've had in years" she pronounced. He had had cancer. It took ages.

She did not mind that the flowers were a contrivance, surrounded by a capitalist deceit. She did not mind that she had joined the painfully ignorant that she had only a few moments before condemned for having ignored the signed entreaties and merrily trampled over the beautiful flowers.

She tramped, and she was happy, and it was the least she deserved. Somewhere nearby, hyper-reality jumped and ran and threw: my recently widowed mum smiled, a real smile, for the first time in years. They really were very lovely flowers.



A Few Months Later

Autumn always looks the same

all the years of my life
all the years before my life
all the years beyond it

Reassuring
almost
that innumerable eyes and minds and hearts
will drink the amber liquid leaves
imbued, perhaps, with reverie
as I am now

I think not of dust, and ashes;
but golden rust, and mulch, and
how my father and I shall be – are! – the
nutrients for tomorrow