Lermontov
Microstories
“If only people thought a little more about it, they would see that life is not worrying about so much.”, Mikhail Lermontov
JOHN MACKINNON
To set a stone on which to stand
To set a stone on which to stand
We cannot lose emotion dearly bought
No thief, nor king, nor any man,
Can take what we have thought.
My Mother too never really left
Now, to be sitting by this fire,
In tears.
I know you are here, with us all,
As surely as I heard Mum too,
In a rose.
My Dad knows everything
Camping in the garden
To escape the summer heat.
Where’s the Saucepan,
Where the Southern Cross?
You pointed them out.
Last night, in perfect sky
They re-appeared.
Poems come as pirates
Poems come as pirates.
Suddenly
They appear
When I am most
Becalmed
Or lost.
By their knowing
I am tossed
Into a world
That still might hear.
To my friends
Freeze this moment in your mind
Call it back
To be reminded
Though we have lived
And loved
Let our time slip
To leave only
Our kindness.
Farewell to my Father
And then it was done
All sighs, all weeping,
All tears,
Completed.
Save for the sound
Of the sheets
Being laid
Fresh
From where he was gone.
1982
1982 a year of great change
I faced adulthood head on.
My father died,
My child was born
My best friend
Committed suicide.
Challenges make us stronger.