afternoon

i am delayed, fixated. still. 

filled with wonder.
the drive home can wait.
i choose to nestle in my car,
gazing out the window.

leaves stained with autumn-orange

depart from elderly branches on high,
soar to the ground
and tumble along courtesy of the breeze.

i read poetry out loud to my imaginary comrades.

A man turns hostage for his friend's release:

It is a far, far better rest that I go to...

Abandon without return. Gratuity of sacrifice.

It is a far, far better thing that I do...

that cadenza of Dickens's Tale of Two Cities

and a child bursts in tears. Must it be so?

One story will haunt him all his living days.

The wartime girl with her German soldier flees

over the frontiers. Or tell him, now as he greys,

of an African spirit between one world and another

who stays around as a child just to make happy

the bruised face of a woman who'd become his mother.

My name is made illustrious in the light of his.

To break and enter another's brokenness and glory.

This is the story I'll touch in every caress.*

a classmate passes by. i smile, but he too is in his own world with a furrowed brow, uttering words i cannot make out. is he too addressing his comrades?

*Micheal O'Siadhail, Story