Night fell hard
hurt its hands its knees
we kept helping it up
uncoil its wings.
I remember when every person I met
who had AIDS would
die
and they did.
Thank God it's different now
I could say it was a lifetime ago
but it was many lifetimes
we watched
all those theatres of
vital beautiful people
flipped
bare underbelly.
Love was strong.
They taught me countless
incarnations of trust
Zen was a new country
as every moment yelled
it is what it is
Knowing pain faster than night fell
and night fell hard.
I remember when fear delayed
the heart,
held off arms that could
hold and rock those delicate bodies
all the way to daylight.
When you'd breathe past sadness,
wrap nights hands and wipe its knees,
when
you'd sit willingly together while
souls surrendered their bodies
to way-too-early graves
there would come a lifting
a wingspan new to even the sky
and a silence that wept
that didn't warn you
that it would
stay
World AIDS Day
The Press Book House
1/12/2018
Draft*
Hello!
ReplyDeletePlease forgive the clunkiness of this poem. I've given you the first draft. I just needed to get back on the bike (& as you know,all the stuff I post here will be drafts and will change).
Gillian.x
oh yes I have these memories too and for HEP C too.
ReplyDeleteAll the nights of strokes infusions drugs too toxic given too late the smells the dignity disappearing out the windows and nobody left to mind so many dogs where to live when all the money went the houso where the blokes with baseball bats were all too often waiting bravery in fear they clubbed together on the heads of all that suffering now we got to see that too blue
Hi Gillian, I loved it ... got to me swimming around in my mind ...draft 'n all ... clunk is in the funk!
ReplyDeleteno need to give the Deity credit for this one either way
ReplyDelete... a wingspan new to the sky!
Thanks for the feedback people.
ReplyDeleteGood to be back. Onward..