The Occupation

I’ll tell you how it was the world
changed, she said — the darkness
wrapped us around.

I heard her clearly, though I barely
heard the words. It was nearly — yes —
as if she was singing.

Our job, she was saying, was not
to change the world — nor even
to keep it from changing.

No, she was saying (the story
was over already): our only
job is being changed.

 

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Selected Poems : Robert Bringhurst

Charged

How emotions get the better hold of us, I’ve always thought
I’d see it coming but it catches me by surprise
at every turn, I begin to think it can’t be possible and yet still
you persist in my thoughts. “I’ve got to stop now,” I say
so, until time brings you closer again.

New Age

When I think of the way you type, the methodical movements on the keyboard
equipped with a forefinger on each hand, I try to imagine
how you processed the world. Whether you were acutely aware
of the disadvantages against us. I think of this and try to imagine
Of your existence in this world again. How you would view this new age in case
I haven’t grown big enough to protect you.

Mother

The name we call first,
warmth served to what I found
the most sincerely flawed abundance
that we could only ask for
no more but your unconditional love
in motherhood.

Flow

Will it change, do you think, that someday
I may look up from the kitchen counter and you won’t
be able to read my smile to know; somehow our thoughts may
transcend human words when we can no longer speak
the way we used to.

Bend

If it’s indeed true that the outset of our thoughts
brings about real life consequences, such as told
being the law of attraction, then it must be true.
My thoughts would have brought you here. A slight bend
away ago you may have passed me by, but if it’s indeed true
of the infinite ongoing parallels of time and reality,
this crevice in randomized time was the beginning of
your realization in my life.

Happiness

Fast.
The state of being
happy, goes so fast. It turns weeks into
seconds only, as if you could see hence a foreword
to the good things.
The preclude makes it bearable that way, in the
meanwhile, all the while we live
day by day.

Restless

Those nights seem infinite, when you’re feeling
restless. Missing out on all the universal signs, you’d think
it’d be more clear cut. The night is impassive to your search, it says
a change is to come by confused winds.
Dispelled by the morning light; have you found it yet?
What you were looking for.

Sober

Would relapse be those mornings I wake up too soon
to find that you were on the cusp of my imagination.
It seems to make more sense before I confess aloud
these longings that seem so ridiculous now.
I feel like I’ve been drunk or high,
but what it really is, is to wake up;
you’re not here anymore.