The Great Unsaid

 

~ just now ~ on this rainy autumn day … I told my son:  I love you,

before I hung up the phone … I always say:  I love you, whenever

I bid my children good-bye … then wait … for them to say it back

often, in that split second, I think of my Mother … for we, probably,

owe that small observance-of-love to her … such are the rays of light

and labyrinthine of shadows she has cast upon her progeny’s passages 

~ she is so close ~ in the explosion of crimson-umber leaves dabbled in
rain drops held in a window frame, she could be behind me … losing herself
in the rote of ironing, or baking, or mending … in the approaching vespertine

my mother taught me to say:  I love you … often and with feeling … though,
she only, ever, said it to me once … and that was because I dared her to …
actually … now that I think of it … again … she only really said … of course, I do

~ the moment shivers ~ a few muddy splish-splashes into the mortal quagmire
of The Great Unsaid … and then, back to the snug and cozy ... behind wet
 fall-canvas windows … to unfold in the warm shush of Mom’s threadbare afghan

photo:  fall canvas window – W. Bourke

© 2017 Wendy Bourke 

Good Company

The evergreens outside the restaurant window, waved in rippled boughs against cornflower skies.  Cups and cutlery tinkled.  A chair scraped the floor.  The aromatic smell of coffee wafted over whispered revelations of small sins and peccadillos.

The conversation at our table was of ‘her’ – a lovely looking human with the ‘me-me-me’ perspective of a newborn.  I caught myself sighing – more than once – though it passed unnoticed.

Her egocentric lens on life was no surprise.  We worked on the same floor, where her repeated invitations to ‘do-lunch’ had me scoping out every footpath to-and-from my desk, in the contortions of a ninja scout.  Finally, it seemed simpler to just do-the-deed.

  

Our waitress was back at our table asking about dessert.   It was included with the meal – Dang! – of all the rotten luck.  I pointed out the time.

The evergreens outside the window, were so amused they were, literally, splitting their sides ... or so it seemed.

THE THING IS:  once you have had, that moment of crystal clarity, when you see – when you absolutely know – that there is something IMPORTANT that is fundamentally missing in someone … you can, seldom, un-see it.  It is there to be seen again … and again … and again.

  

Perhaps that is why people leave, ostensibly, perfect people:  they can’t stop seeing it.   “I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave,” I said, knocking over my chair, in my haste to depart.  “I have a ton of work to do, but you enjoy some dessert.  This was nice.”

   

I found myself, outside, with the evergreens.  They had settled down, considerably, though, I sensed:  they were dismayed.  In all honesty, I was dismayed, too.  I felt sorry for her – genuinely sorry for her.  I feel sorry for all of them … they ... who cannot get passed themselves.  But .................... Anyway ....................

it was a good day

for the company 

of trees

photo:  Yaletown Restaurant - W. Bourke 

© 2017 Wendy Bourke

chasing the mutable constant

sometimes … I awaken when the moon is old, 

but has not yet departed … there is a bit of peace

bestowed in the pleasant equity of groggy hours … 

an all-the-same-under-the-same-old-moon 

calming fairness of veracity in the solitude of being, 

that begins to dissipate with the morning mist and

ringing of alarms and the dawning of bad news … 

as we rise and ready to chase and corner meaning

for ‘fairness’ is a fickle thing … a hard truth

that does not set, soft nor easy, with the ways of 

human fancy … cruel misfortunes may rain 

upon us … like locusts on a prairie crop …. but 

surely, some goodness must emerge from ruins …

in all ‘fairness’ … if we can only chase down a 

glimmer of meaning in the madness … corner it, 

in a dark alley … and demand to know:  what gives

‘fairness’ loves the chase … it’s such a tease …

it draws you close and whispers in your ear: 

it’s not fair … it’s just not fair … and then,

without grace or explanation … it takes flight … 

and leaves you all alone to quell the flames, 

that ‘fairness’ stoked … leaves you all alone,                                                             

to grab your anger by the throat and shake it … 
shake it … shake it … and cry out … I will endure 

photo:  Three - W. Bourke

© 2017 Wendy Bourke

when truth was all the rage

back in the time, when a hot mug of bouillon cube broth … at the end

of a breathy huff-and-puff winter trudge home from university …

was bliss … we lived in the semi-cloistered shelter of simplicity …

too poor to be hounded by the vexations of money, and given the freedom

to ‘find’ ourselves … by virtue of our middle class parentage … we set about

blowing-the-whistle on every lie and every cruel stereotype we could expose …

pillars of hypocrisy fell like statues of deposed despots … truth was all the rage …

the sun rose and the sun set, on winds of change …  yet, those turbulent

bygone days, were bathed in a simple certainty … that there was ‘right’ and

there was ‘wrong’ … many … most, it seemed, tried to tread a righteous path … 

it was a stirring promise of hope ... so close ...  a beautiful, harmonious world …

new and wonderful words and music … soared … wise old friends beckoned from library bookshelves ... and good people ... really believed ... we were on to something

photo:  When Truth Was All The Rage - W. Bourke

 © 2017 Wendy Bourke