Can you be 23 already?
It seems like only yesterday
I held you in my arms
Your tiny blue hat perched
Atop the innocent face
A baby’s face but already
Oh so wise.
You were born at home
On a mattress in the living room
Without any respirators,
Incubators or the trappings
Of a hospital maternity ward.
There was only me,
Lillian our midwife,
Your mom and a friend with [...]
I was about 10 years old
and coming home from school.
I remember getting off the streetcar
at the loop by the El Dorado Drive-in Theatre
in Winnipeg’s North Kildonan district
I was asking myself why
my mother didn’t name me Leonard.
I have no idea
where that thought came from
but to my young mind,
it was suddenly the coolest of names.
Soon afterwards, [...]
This morning I put your book on the table,
the one you gave to me for Christmas
just before you told me you were going away
and might never come back.
I have read this book from cover to cover
but its message is deeper than words.
Now whenever I look at it,
I am reminded of you.
Many nights
I wake in the wee hours
and I feel that my body is
a high tension hydroelectric conduit
and when this happens
I cannot fully relax
and wonder
why this is
happening to me.
I try breathing through it
until eventually
sleep releases me from the pressure.
The night before last
when I was experiencing
some real difficulty
I visualized my body as a cauldron
and knew whatever was ailing [...]
When I arrived on your scene I was too full of myself
to really appreciate your shining beauty
and as in all old familiar love songs
it wasn’t until you moved on
that I really began to notice.