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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