More on Home and the Fragile Soup of Family – 26th March Cafe Poet Update

This month has become all about home and family. Every poem I’ve written and every poem that’s been written to me. I’ve had this preoccupation with trying to pin to paper my range of feelings about the Riverland, the complexity of my family. What home means to me. Reading through everything I’ve written there have been some obvious patterns emerging. Home needs a sense of connection to others, a sense of safety and inspiration from the landscape, home needs the people that you love and the people that you love are complicated and messy.

I’m lost in this place. The place between who you were and who you are. I’m trapped there with you. My fear traps me. My love. My hope. My baby brother. Because I see. What you could be. What you have been. What you are. My heart is breaking. Breaking. Broken. A broken soft footed thing. Reaching. Are you reaching? Falling. Just falling. No. Reaching. You reached and I reached. Now we’re waiting. To fall. To fly. For something. A tipping place. A new face. A way through. It’s worth it. It is. I believe absolutely that it is worth it. Actually truly worth it.

This is the last day of Café Poeting for March, the next time I’m here it’ll be a new month and I intend to make a concerted effort to explore a completely different theme and place – but for today it’s still March and I’m thinking of those people I love. Those people who make the fabric of my life. Complex, damaged, precious and unnameable.

*

Hear the catch.
The smash.
The something.
Voice on the other end breathing.
Wonder.
Is this it?
All there is?
And
I’m saying
All the wrong things
Reminding you
Of what you’ve
Lost
I hate that
Hate you
Hate me
Want to keep you safe
Want to wrap you in love
In hope
Instead change the subject
Ask a question
Tell a funny story
Pretend I don’t hear you
Crying
Smashing
Losing control
Pretend I don’t know that you’re close
So close
Because
I’m so small
So far away
Nothing
Nothing
I can do
I’m afraid
Sharp
Tangy
Deep

Stay

*

An awkward boy. A less awkward time. And something else slipping quietly past. Someone loved. Someone precious. Who are the people we’ve lost? The people we’ve left behind. Snapping shadows on your shins. Gulping windows in your eyes. Forgotten over and over and over and over and over.