Trickster Timing

It’s a strange thing, time.

Hours can feel like days

when you have something to look forward to,

someone to go home to,

to hold, to cherish.

 

When you’re with them, days

pass like minutes,

heartbeats of a hummingbird,

rolling the week along

so that once more you have to part.

 

Time, that careful trickster,

changes again,

making every second drag,

as if taking extra delight in the stab wounds

separation

causes you.

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Overflow

I’ll hold up the spoon to feed you

letting the syrup spill over the sides

to fountain down to the spoon below

catching and spilling, catching and spilling

a movement, motion, continual flowing

but the nectar will reach you in the end

it can only be controlled so many times

before it makes its escape and delivers to you

the hope that you dared wish be allowed free

Wave barrier

The hubbub in my ears rumbles through my bones and shakes the foundation I balance on. The conversations of a hundred different people, hiss, snicker, guffaw. Chatter chatter chatter, clinking glasses, scraping cutlery, a band incessantly droning on, light brightening, yellowing, glaring. It’s a wave of sensory input building, building, waiting to crash down and knock me back.

I can beat this, I can hold my ground.

Building my own rhythm, a gentle tap of focus. Constant, repetitive motion. A wall against the wave. My feet start to steady.

I might still get pushed back, but I’ll stay standing this time.

High tea

And you can see them now

Crocheted hats and grey hair still styled

In the same way as the aging

Black and white photographs

Packed into lace covered albums

Only retrieved on special occasions

Chatting away to each other

During the short bus ride

To and from the local supermarket

Neighbours, nephews, sisters, aunts

All discussed in the round during

This bumpy, fume driven high tea

Complete with silvered sugar cubes

 

Change

The wind is changing

I feel it on my cheeks

and in my heart

in the touch of soft kisses on my hands,

falling leaves curtain-drawn into

the sleeping cold.

Evaporate

Engines chug away

propelling the clouds into new positions

that people read

as sacred teachings.

Oblivious

to the mechanics behind their prophets.

Those maintaining the perpetual motion

no longer speak or hear

in a common tongue.

Language

is lost to them now.