on being brothers before being men
after Patrick Lane “Brothers”
this morning i read it again
in bed
to see it, hear
the way he travelled before he knew
he was nearly blind, before he
woke
to know all things die and
every stolen moment, every small delight
will pass and
fear will come but here in the fenced garden
the sun and breeze bring solace
make bearable
the weight of such knowing, make possible
aligning words to catch
the impossible
fragility of being, growing older, becoming
more than brothers, how beauty
can sustain us
spiders, webs, bees, blossoms hanging open
tomatoes nearly ripe, shower of beans
swelling squash
with words light on my tongue, dark
on this page, threads, tying us together
the few of us
becoming men who admit the pain,
plain words to make seeing possible
to see beauty
threaded through the day, a skein of lines
we hear to keep us alive in our turn
round the sun, around
