Good theme well realized, Bill.
As you know, I posted my less successful piece here years ago, gosh 2007 -
but couldnt find it - now it has turned up, and I post it here without revision,
whereas revision is just what it needs
soon.
best from Max
Remember this, Patrick?!
you wrote:
Max thanks -I shall put a wreath up outside my place at once just in case I
fall off my eco friendly bike
Cheers P
-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Max Richards
Sent: 12 September 2007 01:54
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: snap: roadside memorials
Roadside Memorials
These days, no matter where you drive,
round town or in the country,
it isnıt long before your eye
gets drawn to the side of the road
one of those wreaths, tied maybe
to a pole, or an improvised
cross, signifying Here, right here
our friend (or family member) diedı.
Sometimes grouped together, two
bedraggled wreaths or three or four
more than one death maybe?
or just the numerous bereaved.
A hand-written message you canıt
quite read covers some piece of card
saying this sort of thing, no doubt:
You were our Mate, Buddy, why
why why did you have to Die?
Always in our Hearts, Buddyı.
Other times, re-passing, your eyes
widen tinselly, gaudy,
soon tattered...theyıve been renewed!
Someoneıs come back time and again,
loyally brightening the shrine.
When will they give up and move onı?
Graves can expect an annual visit,
these maybe weekly or monthly.
Itıs as though the grieving ones
believe the souls of the dead stay
hovering here before finding
their way elsewhere, to...Heavenı?
some after-life they stubbornly
nurture continued belief in,
or rediscover when they need it.
One such shrine sported a range
of food and drink containers,
as if to sustain the lost one
in his former nosh and tipple.
One more for the road? The liquor
may have caused the crash the road
to my eye carried no danger.
He failed again, Saint Christopher,
patron of pious travellers,
overworked as he always is,
he failed again to protect them.
Rounding a curve late at night
on a wet road as your car swerves,
you may think, as you donıt quite skid:
There but for the grace of Saint Kit...
And there comes rapidly to mind
one or other sober friend
who vanished from circulation
for months, not quite killed, indeed
just less a write-off than his car,
which left the road in a wink
of his poor tired eyes, and damn near
broke every limb and his back.
Heıll work again and drive again,
but Lord, the expense to his pocket
and spirit. Well, heıs moving on.
He hasnıt become a statistic,
and his partner and children
have earned all their brownie points
by his hospital bed rather than
tying pathetic flowers to sticks.
Meanwhile, itıs another average
day, the high-pitched ambulances
are nosing through heavy traffic
to the latest pile-up, not far
away from the previous ones.
Wednesday 12 September 2007
Max Richards
Doncaster, Victoria
[after which I moved to town, st Kilda rd,
and now Seattle
]
On Feb 10, 2015, at 13:06, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Thanks, Millicent. I hadn't considered family pets. Maybe there are not as many human road deaths as I surmised.
>
> It's the rapid withering that gets to me. And the openness, I suppose. Some sort of naked need to declare, out there by the road where all rushes by, that some will never rush again.
>
> Bill
>
>
>> On 11 Feb 2015, at 7:50 am, Millicent Borges Accardi <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> I like this one Bill-- especially
>>
>>
>> "But such bouquets fall mourn-short."
>>
>>
>>
>> "Emblems continue to accumulate
>> at the site of last breath, of sudden
>> rupture. There's a reaching in these
>> jumbled cairns."
>>
>>
>> In the canyon where I live, there are many road "offerings," where a family pet was killed, pedestrians, bicyclists. What happens in Topanga is, after a time, the flowers and candles disappear but eerie white crosses remain, dotting the windy mountain road. Most unmarked.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Millicent
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Kale Soup for the Soul
>>
>>
>> http://www.MillicentBorgesAccardi.com
>>
>> @TopangaHippie on Twitter
>>
>> Água mole em pedra dura tanto dá até que fura
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: POETRYETC <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Tue, Feb 10, 2015 12:44 pm
>> Subject: On the Road
>>
>>
>> Who loads these offerings
>> by roadside death spots?
>> Not relatives surely; friends,
>> you assume, who have already
>> placed flowers on the coffin, in
>> chapel, at graveside or urn wall.
>>
>> But such bouquets fall mourn-short.
>> A soul interrupted en route seems now
>> to require temporal marking. See those
>> propped white crosses tilting, golden
>> framed pictures catching the sun's glint,
>> printed pages flapping in car-breeze,
>>
>> oversized stuffed toys nuzzling CDs,
>> in loose piles, footy scarves, trophies.
>> Emblems continue to accumulate
>> at the site of last breath, of sudden
>> rupture. There's a reaching in these
>> jumbled cairns. Institutions can't cut it.
>>
>> Even when colours fade, animals
>> desecrate, the vacuum remains.
>> Not just the absence of the departed,
>> but some gapingness the dead
>> leave in all of the rest of us,
>> for whom the road winds on.
>>
>>
>>
|