Originally Posted by
freckle
first draft
Gifts
I brought gifts, a dream,
above the edge of an escarpement,
unfathomable drop,
I felt the fear and the desire to fall.
Another dream, my naked torso,
huge cavernous omission where a stomach should have been,
the wind howling through.
After that I saw holes everywhere, and the drop,
some kind of pleasant vertigo followed.
At the theatre I gazed at the distance
between my seat and the stage
dizzied with the prospect of some magical falling,
not conceiving of decking out,
the unconscious illogical harness of certainty
held my risk taking mind.
Eventually the delectable fear of falling
could be resisted no longer,
and an unsuspecting catalyst
luminous hood in november rain,
unsure of the descent,
we peeled away, without realising
at each carapace.
And so began the journey,
crashing and banging
down a huge bamboo shoot
of possibilities,
I landed with a bump into uncertainty.
The chockstone unlodged, it got ugly,
I think...
I got ugly.
I wasn’t expecting that.
But now, after the machinations,
I catch glimpses,
here is the centre of myself,
a stillness forgotten.
Tonight my mother found some poems
written for her when I was a child
“you were always writing poems”,
I had forgotten completely,
it was a relief to remember.