I RAKED THROUGH THE ASH

 

This is another poem that turned up unexpected and wrote itself over the course of a couple of days.

I always find it interesting when that happens. This time I was lying in bed, Sunday morning, when the first line appeared. I got up and jotted it down as it arrived.

MAPS

On wet days, before he truly went blind,

my father in half moon spectacles,

would get down his maps,

unfold them on the kitchen table,

his fat finger tracing familiar trails,

he would one day take,

over this mountain, across that moor.

He talked the big picture but noted the details,

as I lost myself in the creases,

in the crevasses of the folds

I dreamt my own dreams.

The end they said, was a cigarette,

of course I arrived too late,

after the fire, those all consuming flames

that ate my father and all his rooms.

The day after I raked through the ash,

not expecting to find anything

and I did not.

These days I use a phone screen,

content for an algorithm to dictate my route,

which takes no note of altitude or contour,

battle site henge or tumuli.

I am not sure I believe the relationship between the narrator and his father. Much, I think, is unsaid. I shall share it with the Secret Poets and see what they make of it.

When a poem wants to be written you have to write it even if you do not understand it. Hopefully that comes over time.

I have a soft spot for Catalan pop. Here's Sau from 1991. 

And here's Sau playing their other hit, El Tren de Mitjanit.

Until next time.