Friends & Writers #4

My brilliant and talented friend Ed Covannon has kindly allowed me to publish his newest creation, which I’m sure you’ll love as much as I do, in my fourth installment of Friends & Writers…

Safe Harbor
(Bob and Becky Keller, my cousin Richie) 

1.
Here I wait.
Moored. 
Awaiting the full brunt
of the gathering 
storm.

A sudden recollection.
The wheelchair
the crabbed hands and small 
misshapen body…
the keen mind and ready wit
and the struggle,
the constant struggle,
to survive.
The energy breaking through
his body into action 
like lava rising out of 
blackened crusted earth.

My agent.
He listened to
the songs I wrote..
Nodding.
Offering good feedback and
support.
Getting on the phone 
to try and find me work.

A sudden recollection;
the wheelchair
and the crabbed hands
and the small 
misshapen body
and a pang 
of love for 
him and Becky.
A pang
of fear and hope 
that they 
made it to 
safe harbor.

2.
My cousin did not.
Largely unloved,
and finally lost 
to the chemo cure
for his illness.

A good friend to me.
Someone who was willing 
to share adventures
and risks…
and there it is,
a sudden image of him
pretending he had drowned, 
lying on the sand as people gathered around.
How badly he wanted
caring.
A pang
of absence and pain
remembering how he failed 
to make it to 
safe harbor.

3.
These memories!
My autobiography
would be too strange 
to write.
A book of mysticism and science,
of inventions and poems.
A book of witnessed
tragedies and 
narrowly escaped 
consequences 
of moments of 
madness, ignorance and
stupidity.

Though I tossed tarot cards and 
yarrow stalks,
keys still emerged to my sight.
Keys I tried in  
hidden locks, 
which opened, 
and offered their flowing, 
hallucinatory
maps
that led 
in time to 
safe harbor.

4.
Here I wait.
Moored.
Bobbing with increasing 
violence,
Watching the lightning
striking on hilltops,
the sound of thunder
growing louder and closer to the flashes, 
the seas heaving
with rising terror, 
and everywhere 
whitecaps teeming
on the black,
fleeing
the wind’s
moans and 
roars.

I look straight up
and the sky is perfectly 
black and clear, the
stars fiercely asserting
their eternity.

Friends & Writers #1
Friends & Writers #2
Friends & Writers #3

A nod to Bagus Bramantya at Vecteezy.com for the use of the image at the top of this post.