Some poems from The White Room Poems

JOURNEY TO MY SON
July 2006

I fly to you

oh so slowly
oh so slowly

and I search each cloud for your face.

I think I see you,
with your hair combed, neat, dressed in white,
looking slightly awake
slightly different in sleep
dressed in white as delicate as cloud
and your hands
folded
as I knew they would be
your long, slim fingers.

Quiet all the strings.

And I dressed all the clouds in your white.
And I dressed all the clouds with your face.
And I carried you with me as I flew to you.

But you were already there, in that faraway place
where the waves and the sea and the planes
and the clouds carry people to
when they go so far away.

More clouds,
more waves,
waves.
How is this so?
What can I make of this journey?
Will you know I saw you out at sea
on the waves of the world
as you dream
in the cloud of unbeing?

How will you make that journey
home? How foreign are we now,
all apart,
me in the sky,
you in the heavens,
your brother on one continent
your father another
and your lover
journeying home
to grieve you.

We are fractions of ourselves
factored out into cloud

not seeing
not feeling
being cloud-light.