Comme C'est Avec Toi, C'est Avec Moi

 

     It is windy here now, as the aurora moves closer,

all are gone to a terra-formed object for……….

 

     ………...I am here, still.

 

     My fleece is tight around my neck and body

for the cold and, no birds are apparent, or even, fly.

 

     I am ‘stayed’ as a stubborn that cannot and will not

uphold a disrespect for this world, this celestial ball of beauty,

          I am stayed for I am knowing, all failures here,

               are all failures there and, we cannot continue as parasite.

 

     This day, this sun still shines and though the wind,

          it merely serves to help survivors of a cull - as

               our lungs say hello to each – perhaps in sad

           recognition they will soon rip from the soil as the aurora nears.

 

          This soil, this soil I now dare peer at for the first time,

              hosts a single poppy at my feet,

                   ‘Parle vous en francais?’ - I ask as I stoop

     to touch her petals.

 

     I sit, as token of humankind and never Adam - at the root

of a single ‘red’ flower of love,

     for it is understood the rose – magnificent,

          the poppy a sentiment more powerful yet.

 

     I focus a gaze as the poppy moves erratic to this wind,

        I try - venture my fingers caress a delicate still living,

           and then glance upon the darkness of the circle now closing

        upon my Sun, our Sun.

 

     Nobody is here in this world apart from a delicate and I,

and as the wind blames the vocal tones of ghosts,

     I ask again,

          ‘Parle vous en Anglais?’

 

     There are no voices upon the field,

only a single poppy, dancing erratic before her death;-

     accompanied by a veteran soldier, never knowing life

          for the ‘too fantastical to be believed.’

 

     My brow upon a frown faucets a sudden deluge – my memory

of a gull and rook, a sparrow finch and osprey - yearned and there again

     such majesty of quantum nearing everything I love,

          as this wind this tiny wind on tiny world on tiny field could blow

               this poppy and I and our soil, away from here, away to go again gently into the Sun.

 

          ‘the poppy dances erratic to the tears.’

 

     All the tall of grass now moving like a thousand reaching hands;-

a million pushing from beneath to gain again a place to bask,

          and then the poppy slowly stills.

 

     Sitting down my hair no longer moves but all around;-

this meadow has a violence I never once perceived,

          my fingers gently touch, I take a tear upon my eyes,

               and follow the stem to flower,

          brush the petal with my best of trigger fingers,

             and see the flower fall!

 

               I slowly look upon the darkness,

 

                               “is this what it is to die?” - I SHOUT.

 

         Then upon a chorus wind,-

   ‘Non, pas encore, pas avant d'avoir

                                 dit bonjour à de vieux amis.’

 

 

Michael J Waite 10th of November 2022. With the very greatest of ‘respect.’

 

edited with better vocals as promised 5th April 2023.