There is your name
on the attendance list.
Absent: excused
Parents called in.
There is your name
on the attendance list.
Absent: excused
Parents called in.
for Tai
.
You’ve always been a mountain climber.
Sometimes climbing means tumbling to the valleys.
Sometimes it means diving into sparkling mountain lakes
and becoming entangled with weeds
that pull you down.
Who knew you could drown while climbing?
You’ve always been a mountain climber.
Sometimes every part of you aches for a break,
longs for the plateau.
Rest.
But you keep climbing,
because sometimes, when you stand on the summit,
see the world laid out before you
a carpet of overcoming,
you see all the opportunity;
you see you can fly.
Your eyes glow
when you see me across the room.
It’s been a long time.
You’re still wearing your heart
on your arm.
Once again,
I feel appreciation for your admiration,
awkward it’s still unrequited.
Oh, the confusion of my youthful charms.
Thank you, for
reminding me
so sweetly
who I used to be.
Max and Jenn were in our grade eight classes
and our grade nine classes,
but then, they were not.
Where are they? asked the teachers.
Whispers replied to one another in the back rows,
I saw them outside The Royal Anne.
They’re turning tricks. Doing drugs.
We blinked at one another that our peers
would make such choices,
muttered, How terrible.
We slowed down our lives to peer into the
accident scene of their lives
from a safe distance,
but did any of us go downtown,
and offer them a different option?
.
.
.
This is a forty-year old memory. Where are they now, I wonder?
Your wits are dull
Your eyes are glazed
Your ambitions are low
You are dull
There is nowhere
for you to go.
There they used to climb the hill
to escape their parents, and that was
a place of firsts.
First kisses.
First cigarettes.
First adventures.
If only all our hills were so full
of glorious promise.
.
.
.
Had a visit to the local museum with a class. We learned all sorts of tidbits!
Once upon a time
you sent me cassette tapes in the mail,
one sided conversations taped in the car
on your commute to the radio station,
elucidating the state of our universe
and illuminating that eternity
I was so fond of,
while people glanced from their vehicles,
confused or amused as you talked to yourself
but really me.
Once upon a time,
I talked to you,
but really myself,
elucidating the state of an imaginary universe
that would not become real,
no matter how many words wrapped around it,
or how many miles of magnetic tape professed it.
Once upon a time
we shared a fairy tale,
and when I listen to us now, I wonder that we ever believed
in the intensity of the narrative we told ourselves.
We’re nestled here between the hills
protected from the harsh winds
warm and basking by the lake.
But you are bored,
you’re ready to escape,
to see what lies beyond the valley
and so we wave farewell
knowing after adventure,
home calls the blood.