Lunch with my father

At the beach the high water lapped calmly
against the stones of the new retaining wall
But aside from seeing that structure for the first time

the only surprise was just how clear the quietness can be
Later at your place we could at least agree
that over the years certain trees out-grew our expectations

and that the citruses at this season
lend the air a sweet tang
that no-one could mistake

You say you’ve gone off dark beers
and I add that I can’t take much wine these days
but the revels of the past are not forgotten

just called off with a laugh and a shrug
Times we may have shared are only memories
hardly more reliable than dreams

and almost as volatile as the future
Neither of us lays claim to the naming rights
but we build a mechanism for the impossible

and a generator of inventions
with things as flexible as words
Lunch has disappeared from our plates

the cat’s aslumber on one of the deck-chairs
and our eyes say it’s been a long time
The tool-maker and the word-smith

can admire one another’s craft
but the heart functions best in one’s own shop
Two-thirty and we ought to be back at work

Grant Duncan, 1.11.00

Love Poem

Something says that
you’re my lost and found

and yet not-yet found
So how to secure you fast

boldly and bodily
and talk on through the night

Some elf has spoken
softly so you wouldn’t hear

to say I ingested some sweet of yours
and shared the hand you knead with

And so I’ve tasted
the inner mingling

and felt the hot rising
of your living form

Grant Duncan 4.2.06

Graceful motion

I could have been borne
on a recently decommissioned DC3

The sun could have refused to rise
or the earth to do another revolution

Living things demand to live
lacking right and reason

they demand to know and to touch each other
to kill and to eat

to absorb atmospheres
set off dangerous reactions

lead down reckless ways
I could have fucked

my way into a prison
or utterly reserved

all my questions for the silence
of thinking alone

I could have obeyed the laws
like the moon obeys hers

saved all my hungers
for one innocent banana

not gone for walks
ignored signs

left words unwritten
callings uncalled

I could have taken risks
and I didn’t

but I sit at a table
and look to other climates

opinions fashions
I could invent cities

watch them be ruined
and disregard the life of each

the life of its own
I could have asked them all

for nothing more
than graceful motion

Grant Duncan 9.12.05