Poem of the Week: “Creature of Time”
“I know somewhere there are dimensions where you don’t”
“Creature Of Time”
I will dictate where I live
by the guidelines
of cities un-besieged by tyranny and hunger
handle the enthusiastic
communist student flyer carefully
knowing my Father
would crumple it in his palm
his eyes tired, they would close
stumbling back to a street, somewhere
in a city he never got to love again
Creature of fear
I will attempt the coming years
mapping treasure hunts to
passports that don’t get you stopped at borders and don’t
threaten you with their promise
someday you will be forced to come back
Creature of longing
Parents of parents, I hope someday
I’m not the baby you held one afternoon and
never saw again
I hope you don’t remember me
only in first steps,
Stumbling on my own feet
being chased away in laughter by
childhood games of hide and seek,
where you
never found me again,
where you
dream through the nights of
missing medicines,
water shortages
and electricity cuts
dream amid the darkness, that I’m
still hiding somewhere in your house
Creature of running
I know somewhere there are dimensions where you don’t
measure your chances in life by migratory policy
and you don’t
pray for your grandfather not knowing
what he looks like after the sickness
pray for the rooms you once loved in houses, not knowing
what’s in them anymore
I know
my mother fears
one day there will be a grandchild she will
only get to hold
through foreign photographs
like her mother has been cursed to before her, once
I asked my father if he too
had dreams, he whispered
I want to go home
Creature of chance
The date and hours will determine
what nations will be undone in what
decades
what strokes of luck will
free you from a life of tragedy
If you will be raised
stateless or knowing a place in its glory
How long you will
Hold your grandchild in your arms
when you will
Set foot in your country again, whether you
will live to write this.
we do not choose when we are born
I know this
Creature of time
Though I did not always
know it
Nov 7th/ 2019
Mtl. 1st snow
