stopping stopping makes a sound,offers a plea, drops a hand,pulls you skyward. stop- ping lives below thewhite sack on the red letter-box, composes songs using dust motes. showclosed, stopping warm, beside youon the ferris wheel
‘clockwise is off’ in this convalescence – good word that with it’sgauze-like length and syllabic wrap - been practicing that lost art of waiting, bus andtrain stations, doctors’ rooms, never enough shade or new ‘New Ideas’, been watching,the wizened and the upright, figs ripening, footpaths that flow like prose then trip likemisspellings, been rubbing paperbark trees, listening in on frogs, been mulling over thedifference between learned and remembered, the venn intersects, making a mantraof ‘clockwise is off’ while pondering the origin of knowns, the mind that didthe choosing, hands that shape our days Thursday too many birds, yes,too many for logic,a squadron of black cockatoos,cries like can openers,sharp around the rim of sky.collective leading,a tag team of wakes.too many for a chorus of updrafts,too many for the thoughtsof too few,too many for the sullen work of bridges.winged fiction, air-pocketed,scythed from page,sleek and paragraphed.too many for lighthouses,for regret,too many for ships or why.Thursday, etched on blue,residue of clouds.these birds, sly bells,too many for an abacus,for creeds or commandment,enough for belief rope armies taken my lungs to ocean, rememberingthat on taps, clockwise is off, though this is my truth, my tomorrow, not thatof the clock hands and been thinking ‘bout tides and un-neaping, and lets call itglobal swarming though we’ll never get there of course, when, for every ant there’sa human – they know that, ‘cos for us ‘mining’ means ‘mine’ and we’re more blindthat they are and while we’re making books for our faces they’re forming ropearmies to bind and save the world
and the wind the wind blew through us. we were small thatday, there and not. sea was scuffed, frothed, whipped, smear of land far out where blue skirts blue.wind blew through us. swept us clean, swept us of tales and ache. we were lost that day,found but not. one gull, high up, wheeled and watched. blew through us. we were song that day,free on the stave, note then note, spume and a whiff and dried weed, lick and boom ofwaves, nudge of groyne. the wind blew through. we were sand that day, sand and salt and shelland curled. we were grain that day. wind through us. glint of sun off the quilt of brine.we were small and hope. the wind through us
Kevin Gillam is a Western Australian writer with three books of poetry published.
Windy beach image by Shutterstock.