feeding time

some people are bread for the journey

others are stones in your shoes.

we remember the pain 

but the joys grow hazy.

beloved faces blur in memory

as grief draws salt from the life-blood,

making it hard to think, to move,

to do the one thing needful now,

and the next, and the next.

how do we bear it?

the joy, the grief.

the way life stretches ahead,

stretches us thin,

then compresses suddenly

into a few remaining years,

less sand in the top of the hourglass

than in the bottom.

break it, clench the sand 

as tightly as you can---

it still runs out.

what was it about our lives

that made so many of our children

choose not to become parents themselves?

was it a fault in our navigation,

the abandoned cities of dreams

we overflew on our way,

or the irony of effort spent

as we refused to make them latch-key kids like us,

or the lacklustre world handed down?

the owl sits in the wood's edge and hoots,

"who cooks for you?"

and i laugh, because i cook for me,

i fed the bread people 

and the stone people

and the children and the cats

and myself.

still seeking sweetness

for this leaking boat of a body

for the coracle heart inside,

i raise a glass to the owl

and plan my dinner.