MUMONKAN(GATELESS PASS)
( for Junie )

Here, now
sister mine

lost
in time

dead to this world

I offer you

my eyes
my ears

so that you can see...can hear
without fear of Death

always interrupting you.

Take this breath & live again.
I can see enough for two.

*

MYOJU(THE END OF LIFE)

After the bus crash her soul walked home
limping awkwardly now

leaving a trail of footprints
leaking time like blood.

*

KAEI(THE SHADOWS OF FLOWERS)

Often, I visit this moment
long gone

(that has never ceased to exist) .

I go to find my sister
calling her name

lost as she is in the middle
of this vast field

her blue dress a flower

at the very centre of it.

Here, Death
does not know her

name
only I call her.

She carries me home
in a piggyback.

I fascinated with the freckle
under the shadow of a curl

where shoulder
meets neck.

I lost in her laughter.

Both of us escaping
Her Death.

*

AME NO UTA(SONGS OF RAIN)

Here, Death
itemises her.

The bruised breast.
The torn spleen.
The broken ribs.
The hemorrhaging.

Death, leaving
his mark

on this
human being.

Familiar with her.
Owning her.

Memory tiptoes
into Death's great palace

& steals back
a freckle

lost behind
a curl

between
shoulder
& neck.

Death
has no need

for it.



RING THE BELLS
( for Junie )

I want to ring the bells
backwards into silence
un-weave Time itself

like some God I
create & re-create
your lost face

I construct your smile
see it rise again from
the scaffolding of memory

even your voice fades
flees before me
sunset scattered leaves

I un-make your dying
cry you
into being

Death laughs at my efforts
this you
made of words and tears

the bells advance
stride upon the air
Time re-asserts itself

I want to ring the bells
backwards into silence
un-weave even Death itself



Made a mad dash from Paris to Rouen and its cathedral bells and great horlogue inscribed this poem into my head.

*


ENOUGH TO MAKE A MOON LAUGH

old piano
in the tumbledown
shed

cobwebs
stretch from
note to note

I laugh to see
a kitten
on its keys

composing
a spooky music
all its own

even the moon
gets the joke
and laughs

at its reflection
in a lopsided
rusty rain barrel

Time is only
the wind
in the trees

I remember
your hand
on these keys

a bright sunny day
that seemed forever
light years away from here

your fingers
calling music
into being

some sad unseen
that seemed to sense
a future time

where cobwebs
would hold
the music captive

spiders spinning
from note
to note

weaving
what is to come
...what is...past

now only
this frisky kitty
make music

with its every move
startling itself
with incredulity

that every step is a note
completely baffled
by its new found musicality

it's enough
to make a moon laugh
I cry