Aaron - the Wind Rush in

Aaron - the wind rush in

 

When grief is not such an ancient stream

and softer swells wash smudges clean

I have wanted long since I was pushed

to paint this charcoal scene.

 

For decades, he'd paid in. He had

already paid – and was stripped of everything.

No Leave to Remain.

 

When grief is not such an ancient wail,

your work called to let grief in.

She says, I am your next of kin….She wants.

Permissions. For various things. And I cannot speak.

I wonder why a bakery was calling.

I wonder why like a thunderbolt

back to when you needed a name - back in the old days

of tweed, weed, the history of things, our river of things,

in the unwinding of our family of trees, our groves, the progeny

of river dogs holding the map of all names; the respect

for boat names nearly always outliving human lives.

We are all guests.

 

These names built this map of dreams, our markers on the liquid path.  

The celebration of new babies, the funerals – those gliding

processions of black swan Victoriana, diesel and coal streaked faces

of our history, and from the riverbank, the boater nod, the flowers,

the dusk procession when all tanks and tinpot yoghurt pots become swans.

 

Go. Bliss. Bless. Go. Moving on song. Moving on.

 

How now the seaweed shells of our tubs look like hunger stones?

How everything, not everything, is stolen.

Where were our plants and herbs? Where was our company,

when with you, our orchards sat in boat kitchen baskets,

basket gifts of chopped wood on the path – for strangers, Aaron, for strangers.

No woodburner. No work. No food. Suspended. You were stripped.

Everything taken. (And the thieves on the path say

they miss you, brother.)

 

When grief is not an ancient wail, I say RAGE. Fight.

Tear it Down. Burn and thunder, Raise this Town.

Softer swells can burn in hell when The State in my name

kills a man this way, to call it suicide.  

 

I will rage, full mettle throttle until I am soft

and charcoal lines can streak and stream

your summer smile. Under dark skies of this

the shortest night, your light is still too bright.

Doc Jo Bell
https://youtu.be/Tgq5E2qOcHY
Windrush poem