DAVID, MY BROTHER

That cold February morning when you came / I did not want

you / 'Take him back,' I said / My three-year-old heart

appalled at your bald head / And the fact that you were

not my sister / Instead you crept inside my heart / Still

I continued to send you away / galled because you dogged

my footsteps


Angered that you were ever the baby / Given the warm

and best / The single Sunday afternoon seat in our old Ford

pickup / I left to keep watch on ailing, aging Uncle Bert

My dentist trip denied / because our father promised you

the drive to New Germany / Unattended my tooth grew

sturdy, crooked and ugly


Your grubby little boy hands always

held the biggest half of his heart


On Wednesday mornings / in the Lunenburg County fog

I picked the long row of pickling cucumbers / Sharp spines

pricked my fingertips / You allowed to play / 'He's too young

for such hard work,' they said / My heart bled / All sense of

being loved quickly draining away / and dying


Yet years later / at some undefined moment / your poor

frail body racked and broken / you too lay dying

What was I doing / that moment your heart stopped beating

and I didn't know? / And when I heard / my heart broke too

Shattered into a million wet and glistening pieces

Thin shards that / even now / pierce my body


I hear your voice / See your smile / Meet you on occasion

in a grocery aisle / On the small square of earth / that marks

your grave / I ask Annette to choose two white roses

place them gently in the fading Labour Day light / Crickets

anoint the air with their sweet hymn / I am afraid my fingers

pricked by the rose / might not release the stem / Let you go

8Se09

BROTHER (Born too soon)

Summer 1958

This morning I open the gift you give me
Wrapped in the thin breath of a Lunenburg County spring

A wreath of mist-scented mayflowers
Fragile skin, palest pink Leaves tough as leather

Grey granite boulders Their rough cries cut
In a dank distant past and delivered
To this hallowed pasture with intense faith
By some fierce and fiery glacier

Keddy Brook sings its bright melody
Thick and brown it skips over stones
Dipping my fingers into its holy well
I sprinkle your invisible bones
In not living, you avoid death
Sweet stranger who now inherits Jacob's land

I christen thee Jacob
Lift you into the hands
Of an all forgiving God

Centuries from now - long after
I am gone - your young spirit
Will splash through this brook
Still dance on this land
Our sacred trust

You bought this for me with your blood


NOTES: Birthed in Elsie's upstairs bedroom
Your only blanket this chilled hush
A solemn murmur of voices
Alone in my room, I listen
Dr. Bennett's feet retreat down the stairs
No one breathes...

2005 Aug 27