City Water

by RoseRead (aka Kim Tedrow)


It rained like this one year ago tonight,

But this time heaven is kind--

No theatrics, neither eclipse

nor conjunction, the solstice still

one month away. Just cool fall rain

in a city that glistens with traffic.

Not anything like the water I speak of

When I speak of you.


This is city water. It loosens

oil and salt then sets it down again.

No cleansing, just cares that scuttle

like roaches from corner to corner

and this shine that multiplies

light times two times three--

an illusion of motion where there is

none.


If there were a celestial event,

the city's halo would obscure it

like the truth when you made your journey

to her quest, something you had to do

Confusion was your way of lying.

And oh how well you talk of water

then confess you cannot swim.


On storm drains are warnings

about where this rain is going

and what we let wash down there.

I discared this as a metaphor

Flip the wipers on, and drive.



My Father's Garden

He's dead now, gone to ground

nearly three years beneath the soil

And in his wake, I have found

nearly a lifetime of toil.


I did not make this battered heart,

nor did I shatter that child's mind,

But I am left these things to start

to heal, rebuild and to rebind.


A father's touch, his words, his deeds

pick the ground and start the field

his every action plants the seeds

of the harvest that his children yield


"What else might have grown here," I ask,

standing in this field of stone and grief,

"If the farmer had but performed his task

and shared with me in my belief?"


No answer comes from field of stone

and as I bend to free the weeds

I face the sun and wind alone

tending to the garden and its needs.

I take my bindings with pleasure now.

I love my Egypt because I chose it.

Enthralled or enslaved is all the same

To one who simply knows how to use it.