WEANING SONGS

 

 

WEANING SONGS

 

1.  An Uncertain Quiet

 

They will discover strength on their wings,
and, soon enough, they will find the sky,
and they will abandon these nests to fly
wherever their questions bring them.

However wild they are, they will ask them:
How far is the sun from this burnt branch?
Soon enough, even their needy nesting sound
will give way to breast-beating flutter of wings,
and they will be gone with the strangest wind
that scoops them off from an unsteady home
of inadvertent chances, and catch-as-catch can.
Icarus-like, they must test their flaccid wings
against the sinews of a wild summer wind. O.
Is this uncertain quiet an augury of mourning?

2. Her Vigil

It will not cease, nor will the smell of grass
supplant the scent of brine from this sea,
this angst from absence that was not worth it.
I must keep their plates on the table.  Keep vigil.
They will come home, even as hints of shadows.
I must keep their beds warm, however cold they

left them. They will come back from the storm.
It will soon be over before they know it. I know.

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

Revised, July 28, 2014, Mississauga