Dennis Goldberg

Another windy night blows itself out,
the darkness with its old taste
and the words swirling as always,
a kaleidoscopic linguist lost
in thorny roses,
climbing the wall behind the water bowl
as you speak of an old man with braces
lying in the back of your ambulance,
a man who stood at Rivonia all those years ago,
who looked at people like him and chose
to surrender his own freedom
for songs he didn’t understand at first,
who gave up love for a fragrance in the notes,
some long forgotten memory
of the magic that can be done
here.

The restless air whispers his passing,
rasping lungs rhyming his failing breath,
each time a little more out, a little less in,
but still the light in his eyes,
and a feeling, deep beneath what was said,
that death is just another step
in an unpredictable pattern
that still, somehow, relies
on everything which has come before.

TRACE

Thalaza