The Poetry Of.
Christine A. Clatworthy.
Aunt Rene's Rainbow
"How do they do that?"
she asked me,
pointing skyward
to a rainbow.
What to answer?
Relate
the properties of light -
say
it's all quite simple
in reality?
Except for somebody
like her
in the grips
of Alzheimer's.
For myself
it posed a problem.
Put it all down to science,
a plain and simple
matter of refraction
or explain it away
as one would
to a child.
Alternatively,
look
through her eyes,
see it something
not far short
of a miracle.
The Macmillan Nurse
Take each day at a time,
live for the moment,
carpe diem
and all that crap,
that's what the rest of them
preach to me.
They mean well,
but as the pain gnaws
at my spine and syringe drivers
don't work any more,
she pads, black stockinged, through my mind,
lace-up shoes,
down the road to nowhere,
to my room. She feeds me ice-cubes
on a spoon, asks me what date I'm aiming for.
The 31st of April
I mouth. She turns my iron-framed bed
to face the window
and I look forward to the day
when the magnolia buds will open
with their promise
of summer and pain-free
days to come and
then she holds my hand.
Impossibly Yellow
Sunflowers,
your favourite flowers
and you and they
have much in common.
They turn their face
to follow the sun
as do you
despite the fact
the odds are impossibly
stacked against them.
Too soon
their petals fade,
fall, one by one,
as the sun sinks low
in September skies
but the seeds they leave behind
are spread
far and wide
as Autumn's days
softly mellow.
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