For Tubby
Your brother told me
to let you grow up!
Little did I know then
That I’d have to witness
A second birth for you
This time in your pain
That you’d have to bear
A deep aloneness within
Oh, my bearer of worlds of music
May your moments of anguish
Bring happy recollection
of secret parties and escapades!
Ecstatic childhood shrieks
wild chases, school pranks
sibling animosity, ma’s spanks
selling your brother’s stamps
painting his bathroom ceiling
guitar strumming-singing a la vodka
Oh, my bearer of world’s of music
That you might be forever
The bearer of memories
The teller of stories
Painting life with that creative imagination
That your brother knew was in you
_________________________________________________
The cloth of memory
A patchwork spread
I had made
when I was all of twenty
sewing
fragments of cloth
each fragment
from a garment
I had made
Each garment
the bearer
of a memory.
Thirty years later
I have a new spread
its fragments
those of dreams
hopes
conversations
children’s mischief
reproaches
Times spent together
driving
eating
drinking
laughing
crying.
Tiny gestures of love
That wonderful everyday of life.
Every night I savour
a fragment
from this new spread
Its warmth
my refuge for life.
_________________________________________________
My second skin
I have grown to love pain
I seek it as my second skin
It is in those moments of pain-filled reflection
That you are with me, again and again.