AT A BUS STATION IN CALGARY

(from first lines by Gaylene Carbis)

When I was young and empty

I did not know I was under-utilised under

pressure under fed every thing went into my mind

undigested and unprotected my mother like

a mother to her chicks

I thought her very words were food I

hung off them like a baby eagle

hanging in the eerie by a thread

of muscle and fibre and bone

I aired my differences

to the max.

When I was young and empty

They poured Christ into my wound

and I could never heal after that

like a thirsty man in the desert

I was always restless

When the teacher

would focus on me I was always the one starring out the window

up the track up that dry and dusty road up there

where the drops of water turned cartwheels of miracles

over and over as the light split them into

an infinity of mind as they fell slow motion into

the air.

And I became a vessel sailing on that air the way

an eagle sails the way

I could not ever sit still the way

I fell tumbling from the nest the way

he said I am

the way.

 

Lyndon Walker