Do Go Gentle

Clearly my sandbox, in a dream that once stilled with terror,
Now still-life,
Is no longer full of toys but murky chemicals
In tubes of glass, valves and hissing hoses, looped
And twisted, from which my wizard father offers sips.

My child-self wavers
"What? You?"
I must refuse him, know I must,
And thus I do reduce him.
He becomes hunted,
Merely a fidget under my gaze,
Hunched and running, throwing little side-long smiles
That beg forgiveness,
But always running, hunched and cunning
With hidden hands.

And I , and I am forty-five,
At that age of wizardry myself.
Standing in a wild and weedy autumn garden,
I am picking flowers for old man,
An old man whose potions are replaced with prayers.

Sometimes, sitting, hands entwined upon his lap,
His eyes become warm with wanting nothing,
And welcome me like windows
Of a hunter's cabin at night.
Fire and Light,
Fire and Light.

Brother Between the Wall and the Wheel

My brother
Among them,
Among the crush
And push of the day,
Babies needing and crying,
Mothers pleading and trying
To stop and sleep....
Among the movement of life not his own
Greater than he, the big "WE"
Of his family... Oh my
The solace of the sky still waits.
Great quiet
Soothes and smoothes him
back into place
As he sets out for wood,
Stops and breathes deeply at the shed,
Turns his body
In line with the barrow
So narrow a space
Between the wall and the wheel.

Just a shine of light in the dirty water
A puddle in the drive
Catches him and stills him
" I am that I am"
He is so completely, so pleasurably alone.

Like sometimes on his bike to town,
The sound of his pedals purring
The creak of the frame
As his weight pulls against the chain,
Draws him into knowing so keenly
That he owns his own going,
His own yearning,
His own unknowing.