Something To Say
In an old briefcase
capsuled for years in a corner
of the shed, I found a rolled up wad
of poems, stalled, still looking
for something to say, frozen
in a futile gasp for air.
I should have thrown
them away.
There was also an old plane ticket,
a beer coaster from an Antwerp cafe,
and a few photographs taken
from a bridge across a canal
in Bruges with three nuns wearing
starched white cornettes
stretched out like enormous
butterfly wings perched atop
of their heads.
And tucked in a side pocket,
were letters from my mother
written more than thirty years ago.
Long dead, I could almost hear
her voice read each word.
In one, she told me how
she scored an A for English
in the HSC exam she sat
when well into her sixties.
She could recite Frost's "Birches"
off the top of her head. Stevens,
for her, made no sense. Mum liked
plain language pared down
to bone.
I am not sure why I am writing
these words about such
middling matters, much less trying
to shape them into poetry.
No matter.
Sometimes just ordinary things,
like those found in an old briefcase,
seem to find a moment
to have something to say,
at least for me.
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