Poetry: "Progress" and "Portrait of Two Elderly Brothers

Progress

Already, while you are reading,

you have gone

a billion miles into space

and I have followed;

the earth around the sun,

the sun around the galaxy,

and the galaxy, like a child,

creeps toward faint lights

in our tunnel of darkness.

How could we understand?

We focus on the sun –

our tether to the present

day. And night turns,

the earth restless in sleep,

to find us looking back

at the stars, the salt of our past.

They scatter in every direction,

as knowingly or unknowingly

we are dragged along in silence.

---

Portrait of Two Elderly Brothers

Their room is dim, dark gold,

with gas lamps and the gray flicker

of a TV box-set in the corner,

facing them like the past.

The tea is waiting to sing

like their mother, so long ago,

from the kitchenette of the trailer.

The brothers scrunch together

on a florid coach, no longer

the size of their childhood.

It is the older, taller one’s home

and he sits, forced by his back

to lean forward, as if to kiss

his lost wife’s forehead,

while the younger one settles in

beside the brother he hasn’t seen

for years, when both of them

stood straighter, unburdened

by old bones. They share a good

many things: glasses, wrinkles,

and forgetfulness. Remember?

they say, their voices crackling

like a radio into the 1940s,

war-torn London when first

they were forced to leave

home – bombshells dropping

into their lives, their parents

watching them at the train station

wave from a crowd of boys, each one

stretching hands out the windows.

Who knew that life would endure

beyond the haunting whistle

of a buzz bomb, ready to explode?

The sound meant your life

had been preserved a little longer,

enough to starve, enough to feast,

each day closer to a living room

in a sea-side trailer with a library

of experiences unsaid between brothers,

some things never forgotten.

--- 

The first poem, "Progress," attempts to both show the concept that we are constantly moving forward, literally, in space, while also attempting to relate this to our general progress – how we often see forward and back within a relatively short span of time, unable to see the larger picture of how progress is really going.

The second poem attempts to recreate a view of the time I saw my father and uncle together for the first time. Because my uncle lives so far away (in Tasmania), my father doesn't always get to see him and I have only seen him once. It is one of the few times I have seen my father be a "sibling" and I wanted to recapture him in that role while at the same time describing a bit of the past that they both come from.

Hope you have enjoyed! As a reminder, if you would like to see my other blog where I share other's poetry, comment, and give writing prompts, go to thebardofthemorning.blogspot.com