Michael Griffiths
Rock n' Roll Doggie
?Still Living (Beneath Mango Trees)?
a young boy and his father
drive through their flooding river at nightfall;
the boy wonders if they?ll drown,
terrified as water seeps through the floor
of his father?s jeep.
His father eventually pulls out of the current,
and drives towards home.
Some of my father?s ashes were buried there?
this place I know
beneath the mango trees,
still growing,
out of the fertile soil
of my childhood.
It?s a place that can?t be touched by time,
imbedded beneath reality,
deep within?my own reality,
and it?s somewhere
in the wilds of India,
within
a kiss of civilization,
amongst a backdrop of lost landscape
and culture.
It?s somewhere near this place called Mandar,
the town where I was born,
down a country road where
a king cobra sits,
still
coiled and living,
leading to the farm
of my youth.
The sun pours down around me.
The breeze lifts me into it,
and again I?m pushed through it all:
the mango trees
the house the garden the horse stables
the village beside the property
the surrounding river
never to dry up?
protecting this seamless pocket
in time.
I begin to remember details:
on a horse with my father,
or out past the banana trees
digging irrigation lines,
water flowing through the farm?s veins?
its bottomless well at the heart of the property,
near the mango trees?
both occupying the entrance,
like companions,
always assuring me of something.
It?s this place where my father still lives and
life persists and
yes,
my father still lives
preserved
in lights of golden amber?
living
still
in India
because he didn?t die there;
he died here, in Canada,
and my memory is
still
alive
here,
inside
And if I ever returned, would he die there, too?
Within that well I hear his life?s echo,
and see a reflection,
?a fluid mirror?
and like the river,
it?s never to dry up.
For now, his ashes are buried there,
at the base of this well,
somewhere beneath the mango trees?
green,
alive.
By Michael Griffiths
------------------
The Tempest
a young boy and his father
drive through their flooding river at nightfall;
the boy wonders if they?ll drown,
terrified as water seeps through the floor
of his father?s jeep.
His father eventually pulls out of the current,
and drives towards home.
Some of my father?s ashes were buried there?
this place I know
beneath the mango trees,
still growing,
out of the fertile soil
of my childhood.
It?s a place that can?t be touched by time,
imbedded beneath reality,
deep within?my own reality,
and it?s somewhere
in the wilds of India,
within
a kiss of civilization,
amongst a backdrop of lost landscape
and culture.
It?s somewhere near this place called Mandar,
the town where I was born,
down a country road where
a king cobra sits,
still
coiled and living,
leading to the farm
of my youth.
The sun pours down around me.
The breeze lifts me into it,
and again I?m pushed through it all:
the mango trees
the house the garden the horse stables
the village beside the property
the surrounding river
never to dry up?
protecting this seamless pocket
in time.
I begin to remember details:
on a horse with my father,
or out past the banana trees
digging irrigation lines,
water flowing through the farm?s veins?
its bottomless well at the heart of the property,
near the mango trees?
both occupying the entrance,
like companions,
always assuring me of something.
It?s this place where my father still lives and
life persists and
yes,
my father still lives
preserved
in lights of golden amber?
living
still
in India
because he didn?t die there;
he died here, in Canada,
and my memory is
still
alive
here,
inside
And if I ever returned, would he die there, too?
Within that well I hear his life?s echo,
and see a reflection,
?a fluid mirror?
and like the river,
it?s never to dry up.
For now, his ashes are buried there,
at the base of this well,
somewhere beneath the mango trees?
green,
alive.
By Michael Griffiths
------------------
The Tempest
