Sunday 29 March 2015

South


So my shoulder aches (the left one)
- it pokes incessantly  and a sleepyhead
stays awake. This train is full of scruffy
shoes and bad shaves - travellers - and the sky
a springtime blue wash. A southbound chugger heads
down into another country.  Andrew will be home now,
laughing more than most and feeling for rhythm
in a backbeat song or repetitive gearbox. He’ll be wearing
baggy pants and a bright shirt, chortling.
Perhaps he’s tickled by Angels or maybe doesn’t care
about death. When you choose such a fate, then you wouldn’t.
I fly backwards on this train, blind to what awaits
- and kind of not caring. People are reading screens,
papers, trendy magazines; all encoded.
There’s no conversation. Andrew will be getting ready to eat
with the full rhythm of a fine chew on every
forkful. Teasing the juice out. Maybe every
Angel needs a cascade of support. Choosing a
Down’s Syndrome lifetime will burn care
and levels of mercy sometimes unnecessary
for a warrior of the light.  But mostly his ears
are cocked for music and the heart of life,
pulsing energy in a basket of moments.
He rocked as a baby - full bodied – certainly
more than I rock with my aching shoulder and forever
rigid attempts on the guitar. But it’s the connection
he makes in the smile and a twinkle that carves
heart-to-soul and the beat, beat, beat
of warmth in the veins - to go further and longer
than any old southbound train. And his gift is to keep up
the fashion of a smile - or joy - until the chuckling carriage stops.