Your strong life troubles you.
Rumbling if not
Tumbling
A rock-sadness
in your eyes, like

the cool green stones they are
laying in the shallows,
waiting…
You wait Thomas Christopher.

Hoping to be drawn up the shores,
Up the warm sands of laughter.
Still your sword
Is nearby.

We once pocketed those stones.

warming them
polishing them
against our denim jeans
preparing to drop them

in the emerald waters of a Japanese tea garden.

We watched them silently sway
and descend
Settling on
a mountainside of coin.

A commemorative offering
Made with many hands and hope
The meteled faces
In the pools they laying down
Like each and every generation

Like the 12 stones of Joshua
stepped over the Jordan

Like the word of God
running under the blind surf of events

Like watching you
hold your teacup tender
like a prayer.

Son,
If they drained this pool
And mined every coin with all
Their ambitions

They could never purchase this moment

Never own you
Never you.

Never this.

.

March 1988, April 2008.

 

 

 

In the Tea Garden

Thomas Christopher MacDonald, age 4.

1988, 2008. Christopher C. MacDonald.