Before your interment

reach

for Brother Gerald Faulkner cfc

Here is the reach

of your voice

past naming

where sky

meets ocean

& further still

where you imagined

the unimaginable

on your lips your song

for the new world's harmony

skin

To the life

of your tribe

to the breath

of your planet

in the raising

upheld arms

of a childhood

surrender drawn

into the very heart

beat of ourselves

a son, a daughter

a parent's hand

the rise & fall

as old skin stretches

as grasslands

would change colour

space

Dawn beach sand squeak

shuffling diamonds to an edge

across town new houses

find space between big trees

before

Before your interment took place

I left the memorial & at home

dug deep into the garden

stacking bricks to retain

what was left of the beds

to hold back the fall of earth & keep

what was planted growing

later spacing out cuttings of geranium

& the root stock of mother in law tongue

in the dampness the season gave

of purpose, labour, grief & time

sails

& the tears

have been swept

to the side

of the road

a child's leaf

boat sails

& maybe

that is enough

turning nouns

into verbs