Koko and the Beast.

Koko and the Beast.

This week, two stories.

One beautiful, sad, heart-rending.

The other?

Make up your own mind.

In one story an inflated emptiness

struts and preens in hollow vanity, 

boasting of wealth and power

as his mirror audience

claps and cheers and chants 

whilst the world fills with tears

from children of the poor,

hiding under space blankets,

their crying for their mothers

rising high above the clamour,

the lies and self-justifications,

the heartless mis-use of law and Bible,

the faux “I’m a mother and a catholic” outrage.

In the other story Koko, 

the western lowland gorilla,

dies peacefully,

aged forty six.

Intelligent Koko,

who could sign 1000 words

and understand 2000.

Gentle Koko,

who, tired and near the end,

signed to her friend

“I’m getting old”.

Loving Koko,

who, though childless,

raised two kittens

and thought of them as hers.

Mourned Koko,

missed by Ndume,

who, arranging blankets around her body,

signed  “I know” and “Cry”.

Koko,

let me also mourn for you.

Let me praise you too.

Strange consolation

to know of life such as yours,

intelligent, simple and pure,

utterly without vanity,

a light in the darkness

of all the coiffed, self-serving horror

now strutting the stage of the world

and beating at the hollow chest

of its own vast emptiness. 

First published at New Verse News.

In the Scree Slopes.

Dennis Kilgrin first appeared in my life when I was about twenty. He left me with a few forgettable ramblings and then he disappeared. Fifty years later, he appeared again in a storm on a mountain. “I’ve got much more to say now,” he said, asking me to follow him. This I have faithfully done, recording both his movement and musing. 

“Dennis,” I said, “Kilgrin is a strange name. Is it in any way significant?”

“Not at all,” he said. “I just liked the sound. Actually, I made it up when I was about twenty.”

With that he strode rapidly towards the scree slopes and I struggled behind, notebook in hand.

In the Scree Slopes.

Lost and confused, smaller 

than a floating fleck of dust

on the vast mountainside, 

Kilgrin clambered over 

the tangled grey scree slope.

In a little clearing fresh water 

oozed through embroidered moss.

Worn, he stopped and rested.

First he saw only the challenge

of the grey rock under domed sky.

Then he saw the delicacy 

of the patterned iridescence,

all emerald green and bright.

As he gazed his weary mind, 

observing the moss and following 

the water’s ooze and trickle,

drifted deep into the past.

A blue lake opened narrowly

through white dunes into the sea. 

The boy, slingshot at waist,

wandered along a foreshore

thick with lantana, teatree and gum,

air heavy with the scent of seaweed.

Little waves lapping the shore

played a melody in harmony 

to the wind’s soft casuarina swish..

Kilgrin saw him laugh with pure delight, 

load his slingshot, aim skywards

and watch the stone in curving flight

arc then plop into the sapphire water.

Then Kilgrin thought of the long road 

between blue lake and mountain.

He thought of different kinds of beauty.

He thought of the mind of the child,

its curiosity, freshness and wonder.

He thought of rich and complex older minds,

made rich not just by endurance 

but by gentleness, compassion and love.

He thought of varied responses 

to the the long road, how some 

surrender in bitter resentment.

He thought of minds as jewels

shaped and fashioned

by experience and adversity,

how their depth, strength and lustre

can be scratched and scoured 

so that their beauty of light 

is unrevealed, hidden, as if silt-covered

by lying too long beneath muddied water.

Kilgrin looked up from the moss,

past the scree slope’s massive boulders

and towards the cloud covered summit.

Mere endurance was not enough.

He had seen again the child’s joy.

He knew that in his pack he could carry 

joy as rich and a sense of beauty 

more permanent than a child’s,

secured as they were in adversity

and then strengthened by experience.

He stood and smiled a little to himself.

Was that a slingshot he could feel

hanging loosely from his waist?

He stepped across the water on stones,

careful to avoid damaging the moss.

There was a little gap between 

two of the great scree boulders.

He turned sideways and slid between.

First published in Verse-Virtual.

After the Storm

After the Storm.

Two paths forked

on the mountainside.

Kilgrin, shivering and wet,

sheltered under an overhang.

The storm was abating.

Blue-black clouds 

rushed in rumble and flash 

further down the valley.

Columns of light

like celestial spokes

descended and dissolved

above the far mountainside.

Behind him the sinuous past 

spooled through swamp, 

rock-pool, canyon,

river-wandering valley,

boulder-strewn roads,

litter of bright flowers,

sun-dappled ridges,

and this last fierce storm.

I can choose the path

but not the mixture 

of burden or beauty hidden

behind each bend or rise.

Is my only real choice 

in response, in how I walk,

in what weights I carry,

in what weights I discard?

Do the weights I carry,

those known and unknown,

direct and predetermine

both path and how I walk?

He sat for a long while.

The sky had cleared.

Last light pooled in puddles 

and gleamed on wet rock.

The dark mountain loomed.

He stood and walked.

The Evening Star glowed

in the growing gloom.

First published in Verse-Virtual