DRUTHERS ON HIS DOTAGE

 

 

Poem, if he had a choice. There was a time I could write any borracho under the table, I mean drink under the bridge. Is that the bromide? But whatever for? I cannot recall how and when I wrote this note on a rough, brown paper bag of music... and a pack of metaphors. Did I say music? Meta…what? Oh, I meant a pack of brew. Give it all back. Return them to senders. I am done.

DRUTHERS ON HIS DOTAGE
(Or Send Back to Sender)


If he had his druthers, he’d rather not be given:
too little time for too much to give back on.
A keen eye to see both sides of a magic coin?
Be a magistrate then, look for the right and just.
Or a poet who sees both sides of a wall. Or mirror.
Why not a jihadist who slays both good and evil
for a master who will not see any evil in any good?


And snow now melting faster than it could fall?
What ever for? He’d rather they all blew back
to whatever skies they’ve fallen from, too late
anyway for the grandkids who prayed as hard
as the grumbling Imam now hoarse with his
praying at the muezzin. What’s a hillock for
if it is not snowbound for their tobogganing?
 

 He will not suffer the little ones to miss their
winter sleigh. On the other hand, this could be
a wayward winter storm giving back a late wallop
for having been given a welter of clouds and a clash
of heat and cold. Someone sent him a throne of words:
he built cathedrals of thought no one understood.
It’s poetry, mon ami! He said it’s worth a shrug,
like cold tea on a rainy day. Some tea? Bit of sugar?
Cream? Tea, Madame? Tea? Anyone?

 

—ALBERT B. CASUGA
Mississauga, July 3, 2014