Friendship and Caution

Friendship and Caution
by
Tom Roach

I am disturbed by what I’m asked to do
where do the bonds of friendship end
and those of caution
where do they begin

I have a friend as close a friend
as can be
at an age of eighty-three he wants
to drive long hours to visit me

that’s fine, but there are implications
here
that do not at first present themselves
only after careful thought
does one become aware
of the duty of his care

Reaching Seventy

Reaching Seventy
by
Tom Roach

Seventy
what an age
I am a knotty pine

my grandmother’s
ornaments hung
bobbing, swinging
from her eyelids
with every twist

One of mine
will
excrete water
if I stand
triangular
and wait...
patiently

SEX?
Oh come on!
an ancient ghost
might stir a timber
to inhabit
a dream
(note to self: very, very rarely)

De rigeur
visits to a
dermatologist
“I can remove”
she says
“for forty dollars
and your face
will look younger”

I pay
the price of vanity
and for the
frostbite scar
to heal
I wait...
patiently

SEASCAPE II

SEASCAPE
by
Tom Roach

I was on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic.....

the wind
HOWLED
and tore thru
E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G

indigo sea with tearing clouds
flashing sun and roaring wind
captured me
as
wild horses raced across the sky
and
mountains danced
to the
rhythms of the gale
casting
leaping riders
at the sun
while
wind-whipped peaks
were
stripped to foam
becoming
frosting thinly spread
on
roughly riven seas

was this beauty to my eye
or was it fear personified
what would my
sailor Grandfather have said
.....
he knew
all about
“the lonely sea and the sky”

I climbed

I Climbed

I climbed
steep paths
with dogs
chasing phantasies
and
the smell of urine

Heart pounding
till
I could hear it
in my ears
and feel it
fill my breast

On to
where
the adamantine
Smuts
stepped
his
one thought
to stay alive

Past the
precursor
to heather
and the
oldest of plants
still living

To rocks
full
of deep holes
providing myriad
entrances to hell
or homes
for
the only relative
of the
elephant

Where howls
the wind
lifting you
as a hawk
and tossing you 
to the
azure Atlantic

Here you
can look
to the South
over
Vasco’s Cape
seeking
like the
tireless Scott
the icy wastes
of Antarctica

Stand then
and drink
with me
of nature
knowing
the wind
the earth
and the sea