Family Portrait
This old carrier contains the remains
of a jumbled family jigsaw whose puzzle
lies in the tell tale outline of vanished lives.
A few of you went underground, lay in wait,
until distracted hands, digging in drawers
disinterred eyes that still could not be met.
Time travelling back through tiny windows
of history, even faces estranged by youth
remain as potent as their owner's presence.
Strange suddenly to find this platonic version of you
surviving on untarnished in the memory of your friend.
Here, you are eternally innocent of the people you became.
Slower than growth, some of you are allowed to
creep back, given temporary lodgings in shadows,
house ghosts whom we must learn to live with.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Words Fail
Sometimes our language is tongue tied.
Dictionaries are at a loss to give a definition,
our analogies fail to find a comparison,
even the best words are a monkey’s chatter.
Aboriginal words must have given relief.
Unalloyed with casual use by lazy tongues,
their violent utterance was ripped from throats
like screams to arouse a primitive understanding.
We need a new language, held in reserve,
loaned to us only when events slip the
leash of ordinary words and bolt beyond
the reach of common understanding.
Pristine words with distilled meaning,
engendering a supernatural communication
which we must use responsibly.
Until then, there is the anti language, silence.
* Fiona Sinclair has two main passions poetry and handbags. She feels the handbags are symbolic of something. Fiona became a teacher 12 years ago, a mistake she is trying to remedy.
