Thursday 15 December 2011

Everything is Indestructible

So spoke my six year old just yesterday.

I did not care to contradict his words.

His face was scratched when falling from a tree,

the neighbour's blossoming magnolia. He

shook off the pain, and saw migrating birds

above his head, flying as they had done

 

how many million years? Their southward run

unchanged, unchanging, as he'd lately learned.

And in his yard, a cherry's broken bough

hangs twisted by a storm. I can't allow

more time to let it fall. My wife's concerned

it's dangerous. And yet, what will become

 

of all that wood? Food for the lathe, and some

will find its way down to our forest where

rabbits and snakes will nest in its remains.

So often here, our losses become gains,

as she is always whispering in prayer:

those hands turn circles on her rosary

 

through endless curves within her ecstasy.

So maybe James is right, something persists

beyond what we can see: the river moves

its banks, but through this transformation proves,

even when changing course, it still exists:

I'll listen more to what he has to say.

 

By W.F. Lantry

 

‘Everything is Indestructible’ is the 2nd Prize Winner in the Stepping Stones Nigeria Poetry Competition 2011

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