"ostler" poems
Where are we, Kaya?
Landscapes pock like amanita muscaria, fly agaria
the long-legged mushrooms, scarlet
and foot-cloven
and languages rage and quicken like seeds
Seated at the empty table
bloated from unrequited intentions
we refrain from embrasures
Your Garingau voice & throaty laugh
ripple over our eyes
Ha liya youn dabib?
You ask: Where
are we
going?
from here, with Lighthouse Caye in sight
on this sea of blighted corals beyond Seine Bight
where you were born as a footling--
inked though it became-- sole dark, Soul bright
emerging from the long dive
talismans training in your toothless mouth
foretelling the deeper plunges
off Billy Hawk Caye at Solstice
soulfully spearing our Sole--food without strife
And there is richer fare
where
we
are
going
into the night Kaya.
~ Lin Ostler
December 23. 2011
all rights reserved
Mar 18, 2012
Mar 18, 2012 at 3:14 PM UTC
Geoffrey Chaucer died last weekend
about six hundred years ago.
One Autumn day muffled drums tapped
out a dying pulse, a knock at
heaven’s gate. I listen for hooves,
the soft thud of an old man’s shoes
on the path outside the ‘grace mansion’
in the corner of the churchyard,
thinking he might just be riding
down to Canterbury again;
but no, hooves and voices are both
silent. No more good wives’ tales
set down between journeys on the
King’s or even Bishop’s business
and reread at evening stops at
some inn along the Kentish road.
I sit a little longer, sad
until the voices of a priest,
a nun, a soldier, an ostler
carry to me upon the breeze
and I know the pleasure you will,
somewhere, sometime, in future years.
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 5:43 PM UTC
Born on Boxing Day
she lived a hundred and one years
- all through the Great War
that failed to end all wars,
the social revolution of the twenties,
and the great depression,
before marrying at the age of twenty-five.
And even then she had to declare
her father’s occupation
on the marriage certificate
as if "father : ostler" defined her.
The marriage took place on Christmas Day
to save the expense of another family gathering.
She never went out to work after that,
no longer just her father’s daughter
but proud to be a wife and mother,
first in rented rooms with a shared outside privy,
then to a modern house “like a palace”
with a refrigerator
and a washing machine
and a garden
where her husband could grow things.
She always loved babies and children
and even at the last,
after years of advancing dementia,
with eyesight, hearing, mobility, and memory failing,
she would always come to life
in their company,
everything forgotten except how much she loved them.
We finally said goodbye, knowing
that although she had little to give
except love,
she gave it to the end.
Oct 1, 2018
Oct 1, 2018 at 9:39 AM UTC