Poem: Carving names for the sky

Posted on 25. Sep, 2009 by Andy Riverbed in Culture

This morning I turned to the alarm and it was 7 AM.

I shut my eyes and saw you as a butterfly floating over

Tennessee Williams’ field of blue-petaled children.

I gave up on sleep and decided to run after you.

In the field I carved your name in-between those blue petals.

The children, I stepped on, but they didn’t care because

they were children and happy. They were still innocent.

Your name was seen from above

just as I had seen the name of the girl

the French boy in the Le Grand Voyage

had carved in the sand

as he waited for his father to make his pilgrimage,

because all he could do was think of her.

By the end of the movie his father had died and the boy

crouched into a fetal-position next to his father’s corpse.

The boy cried because he knew he’d never speak to his father again.

He then knew that he had wasted all his time available with his father.

I cried in that field because I felt the same.

The blue-children surrounded me and began to console me.

They climbed on each other and raised me above them.

From above, as a prisoner of this tower

formed of blue-petaled children,

I could still see your name

and things were okay.