APAD 4: Prompt: a history poem
"Here is always now. How can it be anything else?" Robert Dessaix
Let's say each brown crumbling fern frond
I've snipped off this morning (then)
is a chapter in my history and the fern's.
Let me announce publication of a book
starring dead leaves dumped on a garden bed,
the past informing the future of serial growth.
Continuance must and does matter.
I must wear long sleeves and gloves
since the cancer. To separate these two facts
would seem dishonest. I sweat freely
as I lift and dump and snip, and press down
on more weed than I have bins for.
Let's say (then, now) that my arms
enfold - embrace what was (there) then
is Here Now and only here. Now.
NaPoWriMo
Community
She sees them as she drives to shops:
tall, narrow, the girls short-skirted
the boys who swing hips, look down
at neighbourhood caucasian friends.
The mothers are swathed in gorgeous colour,
backs lacking babies snug in shawl or cloth.
She hears the community church
has offered help. She doesn't belong
but thought of knocking on their door
offering a casserole, afternoon tea
She is surprised at her timidity -
the street was hers before they came.
But isn't that true for any tenanted
houses with unmowed lawns?
She remembers how a different colour
can be a justification for advantage.
Remembers, too, the food offered
in welcome, too tough for her teeth.
Let the church marshall support.
She happily relinquishes guilt.
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