The cats mope: January tanka 2013

The cats mope.

'How much longer,' they say,

will this go on?

How much longer

will he not come home?'

Wet Day

Wet day, cosy,

in bed together snuggling

reading, sipping coffee ...

well that's how it used to be.

Today it's just me

and the cats. Bugger!

Hide and Seek

Wildness comes into the garden

looking everywhere for me.

Feathers of light and dark

ray down through the trees

seeking me out.

But they are blind

and cannot find me

while I sit still and silent

here in the shady corner.

They have not the patience to wait.

I shall choose my time

to rise and move in the dance.

When I am ready

to embrace the wild,

I'll reach out easily and take it.

Submitted for Poets United's Poetry Pantry #133

Andrew

We'd been dating a couple of weeks.

'I can't come out with you Saturday,' I said. 

'My house-mate and I are having a garage sale.' 

He didn't say much, just asked what time.

I told him it would be most of the day. 

'OK,' he said. I thought he took it well. 

On Saturday morning he turned up

still not saying much, just lent a hand

setting everything out, then sat there for hours 

on a low chair, helping to sell. 

His Blues Brothers t-shirt declared

he was on a mission from God. 

And so he was, always. 

Long before I knew him he was inspired 

to bring Discovery, a program for teenagers

out to Australia from Hawaii and set it up. 

Parents were always coming up to him later

in public places to thank him. 

As an investigative journalist, 

though he got little credit, he instigated 

major social reforms — at the risk 

of personal danger. Some nights we didn't dare

answer the phone. The Senate Enquiry 

almost gave him a heart attack, but he spoke up.

And when he discovered first-hand 

that the nature spirits called fairies are really real, 

and having a hard time trying to look after the planet,

he wrote a book for children so they would know too, 

and know that we need to make spaces 

in polluting and destroying our home environment.

He was a wonder. His last night at home,

before he collapsed and went to hospital,

I came down with a nasty cough. 

He could barely stand, yet he stood 

behind my chair to lay his hands on my shoulders. 

He still had the best Reiki hands.

Our friend Letitia, who knows these things,

had him picked as an earth angel.

He was feisty and funny (an angel is not a saint)

but one way and another he was in service.

He had a long talk with his daughter since passing over.

He told her he's helping young people. That'd be right.

Submitted for Wonder Wednesday #17 at Poets United

This seems to me very prosey and in need of more work (though the slanginess 
is on purpose) but to meet the prompt I need to post this draft now.
All poems here are subject to the possibility of change.

The Fence

The fence between present and past
has many names.
It is called linear time, it is called
impossible, it is called death.

Driving home on a sunny afternoon,
I pass the turn-off
to Pottsville, where we used to live
and I dream of taking that road

back to our old life in our old home
and finding you there
waiting, smiling to welcome me in.
You would be at your computer

or maybe already cooking ...
we would hug.
But I drive on past that turn-off
knowing the road to the past is barred.

Across it is a high, invisible fence
I can't drive through.
I would find myself diverted, back
to the present in which you don't exist.


Submitted for Poets United's Verse First - Fence