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Idiot Child

by Powis 

Posted: 06 February 2004
Word Count: 111
Summary: Very personal and probably needs some explanation by way of context. This was a visit to the house where I used to live as a child. My mother died there and my adult self had the feeling that the 'me' that witnessed it all as a child was still there while I had moved on, reconciling myself to her death. Also 'sloping field' and 'weathered stones' refer to the graveyard across the road from the house and her funeral. The apple tree stands in the garden.


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For my mother



To look up and see his face,
drifting in the window
like a tethered balloon,

and looking through him
see her room,
freighted with silence,

like the weight of snow.
To have lived
here for twenty years

and not to know
even suspect
what it’s all for –

that sloping field
across the road,
the weathered stones

we hid behind,
watching her go.

To look up and see him there –
cartoon face,
hanging by a question mark,

a ragged hook –
and quickly turn away,
noting how

the apple tree has
split beneath
the weight of snow:

her death,
still moving in the world.



Tel Aviv 1992






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Comments by other Members



Fearless at 15:39 on 07 February 2004  Report this post
Still, yet very moving. Write on,

fearless

dr_mandrill at 16:35 on 07 February 2004  Report this post
the weight of snow, that's brilliant.

Well done mate.


dm.

Dee at 16:54 on 07 February 2004  Report this post
The cry of a bewildered child... how sad and moving.

Dee.
:'(


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