if as one

if, as one

Fall of the Berlin Wall with acknowledgements to Deutsche Welle (dw.com)

this is a road.
the wind cutting out a sky
 bare as rounded stone.
 shadow outgrowing
 along the earth
the cold of a
		sharp edge.

i have turned this way
 heart  like a breath
 showing its move
ahead of the body
 a warmth given up
		to the air.

love failing like clouds
when we most need rain
i ask only to share the
water of this journey
asking  my only privilege.

i tell you
this road could turn
	            to a sea
our step to a wind
 riding roughshod over the
		    waves’ split surface

our love 
could be the bow

january 1995

Copyright ©1995 Peter Le Baige.  All Rights Reserved

The music is from a live recording of Beethoven’s Leonore Overture Nº 3 by the Bavarian Broadcast Symphony Orchestra on 17 October 1976 under the baton of Leonard Bernstein.

sent

sent
for Anzac day 2018 & in memory of my
grandfather who fought in the First World War

some went
as if by
appointment
to meet with
death on its
bayonet point
of hurtled metal,
some prayed at
first that it would
be ended soon
in stately rooms and
royal terms, praying
lastly that it might
simply end whatever
that would mean
while they still
found a god they
had belief enough
to pray to.
some abandonned
all memory except
the job at hand
that cost them the
night in nightmare.
they all could not
but imagine those
at home wondering
at the rage and
anguish they sent back
to them in the skies of dawn
and billowing down in

that man

      that man
              to Leonard Cohen

that man
in his elegant
disguise of
razored
word
took us down
to the river
that twisted with
light amidst long
runs of darkness,
that river sounded
like a whisper into
the microphone
of dream,
ran with the
strength of a
lover’s body
all the length
of touch,
ran over
sunken gardens