Veryan Haysom
To Gather Stones
The paths my children walked to school
are faded as a coppered roof ’s green drip-line
and unknown to me, who never walked
to school in freedom but awoke there,
black dawn after blacker night,
too young to know the anguish of loneliness
was driving me to camaraderie
with boys rampant with hate.
The drip-lines of the childhood
paths have disappeared
in a riot of cherry trees and alder
but not the track line
of my journey home
on a train filled with boys
free to gather stones
to hurl from open windows
at children begging from the bush,
black arms outstretched in hope.
When I walked my children to their school
I cloaked their eyes so they could not see
me watch and not cry out in pain.
When I walked my children to their school
I had swept the soft brown path
of the stones of cowardice at cruelty.
When I walked my children to their school
and paused for them to picture the soft
slate and yellow paint of the parula’s song
it was to stifle the sigh of old loneliness.
When I walked my children to their school
and crushed pine needles in my palms
it was to mask the hint of fear
that they might pierce my barrier.
Page(s) 372-373
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