we waited

I’m driving.
I’m driving to the airport.
for you, her beloved
her beloved we have waited
a thousand thousand thousand seconds
minutes
we have waited a billion seconds, an ice age
an ice age that covered every waking day
and night, we waited for you, to see you
her beloved, the parting of the glass doors
you walking through, the airport
the ice age of this winter
every goddamn second we waited, held our breath
kept each other warm, we waited not to hear
the midnight knock, the buzzer ring, the telephone
I am driving to the airport to come get you
she will burn your last letter to her,
the one you wrote before you left
she will burn your last will, your testament
the order of the service she kept in her backpack
for you, the details, your kilt, your dress jacket,
your shirt pressed, ready for you,
the music, the Padre, the ritual kept for you,
she will burn it, she will burn it
I am driving to the airport
her beloved, her beloved
she/we have waited for you, these last
seconds for you, to step left right left
all the way home whole, alive, breathing
not in a flag-drape coffin
from this war.

apology to my fellow May Dayers

please accept this apology for being so AWOL this year. attending the repatriation of our young soldier, Pte. McKay, whom I knew a little, spent time with over 10 days last May/June before he left for A'stan, really took a lot out of me. I came home and basically went to bed for 3 days. it has been a long, long winter on my home front where I am learning to live without a partner for the first time in my entire adult life.

the past 2 years, watching a battalion prepare for, go to war, then visiting them on the front, has been some of the most fascinating time of my life. I know I will write about it in some way or another for all my life. as a friend in theatre said to me, "you've hit the vein we all dream of".

my job is to write my work well. and as a relatively new writer, one unschooled, one who does not belong to any "school" of writing, this is challenging... form, aesthetics, etc.

this is a long winded way of saying thank you to all of you for your understanding and a request that you keep in touch with me/my work and feel free, in fact I invite you to, make comments about my more public work.

after things settle, I'll look at everyone's work. I'm so eager to and as always so pleased and grateful to be in the company of such worthy writers.

until next May Day, I am sincerely yours,

Suzanne

how

how could we leave you

all that we live

for all that we have

that we would give it

all for that we could

collapse it all that we

are have always been

for that we would

give it all this ring

this him and her and me

for all this which

we have always lived

for that I you could leave

us for it all this leave

our ring our you and her

and me for this gossy

this that we would always

live would give it all

collapse it all how

could I leave you all

that I could live for

all we have this war.

untitled

for M

in the space between

the ticks

the thousand clicks

my Mission clock

brass pendulum/oak

keyed and wound

by hands, mine/other

women's hands

a century and a half

it stands still on

the sideboard still

and I am still

but for my heart

it skips but still

another beat to keep

this life, my time

in the space between.

O Johnny

Johnny, über-soldier on Shilo’s Carl G range,
I knew you’d cover more than arcs, tread dust,
test, not second-guess, you’d take the hit
first before me, before your men. Ever.
At Suffield your platoon white teeth black-face grinned
after live-fire, the hail, LAV turret, gun break-down,
taught me how much shit infantrymen can take,
how the heavier the load, weirdly, the happier you all get.
Then Afghanistan. 11 Platoon only a kilometer away
but roads too mined for poets to come to tea.

Trenton, repat. We hugged, waited for one of your boys,
cried before he arrived, his coffin unloaded.
O Johnny, believe what Col. says. There’s nothing more
you could have done. It was that young boy’s time.

the angel's share

Slainte mhath
North Atlantic peat-men
you cut fat cubes of smoke and heat,
trickled clear the water rite
for tongue, lips, throat, the belly,
re-created celebration, consolation, wisdom
that swallowed smooth all the way down,
was done, dusted, distilled
decades, hell, centuries,
before this war was invented.

Slainte mhath Orion
light Cubans,
break chocolate
tart and black as Kuchi tents
pegged by the Arghandab river,
palm almonds, freshly shaken/cured in Dande,
raisins made in grape huts used for grapes
not ordinance, not hiding nor attack;
cut wedges of pomegranate fat, red,
let them bleed on our fingertips
the colour of all our dead,
the colour of the hunter’s dress uniform pressed
for Brigade Officers’ Dinners in the mess,
that we should savour each glossy seed
so damned sour, so damned sweet;

Slainte mhath
say it aloud for the boy we witnessed,
though words are so God damned meaningless,
come far too late to do any good
for the boy carried, then shouldered
all the way home strapped
carefully, the tender side of war,
the one who’ll never know an afternoons’ best whisky;
pour for him, for ever here, now,
before the wind is up, the lanyards on the flag poles click,
and it’s too late for sails across this Great blue Lake,
say it before this moment passes as his cortège passes
beneath overpasses, down Canada’s own ring road,
a threnody of Harleys singing a lament
as the piper pipes his Flowers of the Forest
on hot black tarmac, and the turbines click click,
and a thousand people pull over to the side of the road,
go silent;

Slainte mhath
to the worn grass you stand on
within the starburst of the old bastion,
the Martello towers squat and sturdy,
such quaint limestone, so comfey in their history,
your shoes are buffed so black and shiny
we see reflections of ourselves
as you pour good whisky gone to ground,
and you are tired, have seen too much,
and I am so tired, have heard too much,
as we offer just for him
the angels’ share.

AWOL

WP gone AWOL

from May Day Poetry Project

apologies

but this May has brought more witness

to sorrow's field,

the awful flowering

Sunday, beside a tarmac,

in a curtained room,

I held a grieving mother

I knew her boy, stood sentry with him.

she thanked me for remembering,

we stood on the tarmac

watched the plane bring his flagged coffin

home.

poets, (but you already know this so forgive me)

take your words,

scatter them wild,

seed this earth with redemption.

Sapphire 2

Sapphire's blue body suspends-

like one of those vaudeville tricks

men used to watch from velvet seats

when the city was newly stolen;

there are no wires in this act,

only breath

less-ness

as Sapphire waits for digital

word, or a call filled with echo,

or the hard knocked door

at midnight by the boys in green

who roll quietly up her street;

Sapphire's body suspends blue

air-less,

because her man

(one of the old-fashioned kind)

father to her two girls

sleeps but does not sleep,

eats but does not eat,

cries but does not cry,

far away in a thankless land.

sapphire

J, the camas are in bloom;

mid-Spring bulbs fat, white,

burrow the black earth,

your home of tall Douglas fir

Arbutus groves, red strawberry bark

peeling renewal, a fleshing;

there are stars in long grass

the camas flocked

blue, blue as sapphires of KAF

blue blue as Afghan sky in May

blue blue as her body waiting

for you to come home to her

alive.