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Saturday 1 September 2012

Tripped in and out of my mind




The lights are out --
the trip-switch has tripped
taken out the walls
the furniture and known corners
neatly placed stool and shoe
just where the wide-eyed blindness
prompts foot-fall ;
the candle-lit re-decoration
repaints household
and a strange after-smell
lifts me from floor and stupor,
but Tutu knows --
the square-inches of his kingdom
are not yielded in light or shade
or the pitch-black of human oversight –
and so I scramble through scrambled memory
into moonlight familiarities,
yearn for a family gone a-visiting
scatter thoughts like seed
on garden, leaf and treetop
discharge insecurities into rain-pools
remember a girl and a doll,
a book of verse and a short story
fingertips and the principle of gravity,
pat Tutu on his head
and retire.  

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4 comments :

  1. Familiar and painful memories! Unfortunately 'Tutu' being black was a tripping-point as well!

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  2. Tutu: pet dog, mongrel, mostly black with some white patches.

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  3. Our 'Tutu" was also a mongrel but with aristocratic connections!
    Black-no patches, named Buster. In Nawala, late 1960's, black-outs were the rule rather than the exception- so tripping and falling were painfully common.

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  4. This one is so poignant - love it.

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