IT'S A LONG LONG ROAD

you the proud
horseman
of my shoulders

my curls your reins.
the sky dripping with
pure happiness

the horizon a sheer line
of nothing
but joy

I gallop off
into the infinity
of this one and only moment

the centaur of
my little brother's
world



now you
are in your pudgy phase
and I can only carry

you on my back.
I tell you
you are my koala bear

you like the sound of that
"I'm a Coca Cola bear!"
you chant

"Yeah..." I huff
"...right!" I puff
you too heavy

You ask me if you
are "...too heavy?"
"Not a bit!"I lie

field after field I
carry you
through that summer

"Huffpuffhuffpuffhuffpuff!"
I turn my breath into song.
"Huffpuffhuffpuffhuffpuff!"

"You ain't heavy...
...your'e my brother!"
I sing you



now I carry you
within me
as the living must

carry
their dead
our memory

light
as a feather
resting upon the soul

your death too hard
for me to bear

I carry you
through fields of summer
you will never see

"Am I too heavy for you?"
your voice
echoes inside my mind

"No...!" I lie
you smile
knowing now...I lie

"You ain't heavy...."
I feel his little hands
tugging on the reins

of my curls
". . .you are
my Brian!"

*

Just a tiny slight moment that makes it through all the storms of the past to arrive intact....so insignificant but so beautiful and tender. It's funny the little things that survive...me carrying him as a little boy and gradually the growing up and still the same act of carrying him and singing to him. Now of course I carry him everywhere within me...his death such a hard burden to bear and carry...don't know if I am strong enough.