My Papa's Eyes

I see my papa's eyes
weighed down
with two round stones
smoothed by water
from the river.
My mother's tears
drip upon my neck.
I reach across
the wooden box,
a kind of boat
lined with my mother's shawl,
not satin.
We'll hack at the soil
for years
to pay.
My mother's friends
keen through rough
scarves and fists of scars
held close
to their mouths.
The tears flood over me,
flow into
my father's box
fill him up in his
Sunday suit,
my tears seep
into the neat round
bullet holes
in cloth
and skin.
They overflow
his coffin,
fall as if from high
mountains
onto the floor
trod thick and firm
by all our feet,
and fill the room, and
we swim
like fish and gulp
the sadness in
wishing we were
brightly coloured
birds.

David Fraser

David likes to balance his life among a variety of activities in the areas of writing, education and sports. When he is not formally working as an educator, he is either writing and researching or involved in one of the following sports: alpine skiing, ski teaching as a full time professional ski instructor at Mt. Washington, BC http://www.mtwashington.bc.ca/winter/default.cfm , windsurfing, tennis, golf, cycling, hiking. In addition he likes to garden, listen to the blues, and search for his way through Taoism. He has built his second water garden which has become his new daily sanctuary. His is learning and refining his Spanish fluency and will travel back to Central and South America in the near future. He lives among the flora and fauna of the British Columbia West Coast. David is the editor of Ascent Magazine - Aspirations for Artists (established 1997)

Email: David Fraser

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