Memory

While You May

~ Iyan Igma

Enjoy the rain while you may
Before arthritis and joints conspire
To pressure you into misery
And set your weary limbs on fire.

Bathe your face in heaven’s dew
And dance amidst the angelic spittle
While you are young and vital yet
And your bones have not turned brittle.

Splash in puddles and play in mud
Ere propriety robs this fun from you,
And you become a boring grownup
That disdains joy and says, “Pooh, pooh.”

Flesh out your childhood with memories
That you may have wide smiles when old
Of dancing through the seasons
When drizzles made the air grow cold.

I watched as you died

~ Iyan Igma

An aged child, I watched you as you died,
Slowly at first for you yet believed
At first in diet and then in faith,
Albeit your hopes were quite deceived.

You staunchly refused to have chemo,
Since radiation sickened you so.

The healers all came and laid on hands
Covering your head with olive oil.
You thought there was much reason to live,
But still your health continued to spoil.

And then you died, your innermost light,
Your source of will, the strength of your fight.

And afterwards little time was left,
And you were deteriorating,
Spewing acid words to maim my faith.
Your spirit was debilitating.

Your muscle reduced to nothingness,
Your stoicism into tenderness.

You whittled a wooden pry bar pick
To open your nearly lockjawed mouth
For liquid drops to tease the hunger.
Your ravaged being headed south.

The bastion of manhood I once knew,
Wasting, lucidity failing you

Nor pranks nor jokes would ever more play
The mage who could make the skies rain gum.
A frail filament nigh to burn out
We gave our last regards one by one

In a small window of remembrance
While morphine and pain were no cumbrance,

And you died as she held your shriveled hand,
Never making it past forty-two.
And since there was nothing we could give
To mitigate pain or restore you,

Your death was a gift on Christmas Day;
You died forgiven in every way.

Small Jaunts

~ Iyan Igma

Childhood trips were oft painful things,
Even those small jaunts to the store.
Listening as a sibling sings
Made you vow to go nevermore.

The pain, the pain, but not from song,
But from bruised arms and wounded prides
When a punch buggy drove along
Causing large bruises on our hides

Should it be that we were not first
To see it and strike, and even then
There were times you were reimbursed.
Would this misery never end?

Were we hit again, we would cry;
No boy should be seen doing such.
That, in truth, is the reason why
We asked, “Are we there yet?” so much.

It had naught to do with the way
The ability to drive morphs
Your mind. What seemed to take all day
To reach, now but five minutes dwarfs.

Lo, herein lays perception’s key:
Five minutes of what you control
Are hours of captivity
When you’re a prisoner in soul.

Memories of You

~ Iyan Igma

Hello again, another year’s gone,
But my love for you has remained true.
Though time, winds, and rain can etch out stone,
They can’t fade my memories of you.

The adventures we shared when we were young,
The follies of our innocent days,
All of the meaningless words we once sung,
Maturing together our own ways,

The problems that loomed above like clouds
Which we faced calling them funny shapes,
Our friendship’s warmth found amidst cold crowds,
The relief of our narrow escapes,

Departure’s cruel sting burning our eyes
With all the salt from the ocean’s deep
As we were dispersed like a dream flies
Quickly from the mind wakened from sleep,

And all of the sacred times we’ve known
Have given my life deeper meaning.
As years vanish more friends come along,
But on your shoulders I’m still leaning.

Though there may one day be a sad price
Paid in tears should one day our paths part,
You’ve taught me it’s worth the sacrifice,
For friendship never dies in the heart.

I may be far away from home now,
But you have remained a part of me.
My unfailing good luck charm, my Tao,
Is the worth of your friendship to me.

In the thoughts that strengthen me each day,
Gladdening my heart when I despair,
Your friendship will remain young always
Since to time and space love’s unaware.

How I hope we can have the chance to
Share more memories in coming weeks.
But if this wish is not to come true,
Then know what my heart sincerely seeks:

May you be blessed the entire year through,
Prospered, protected, and full of cheer.
Know that I dearly love and miss you.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Sand Art With My Son

~ Iyan Igma

The sand dunes in the sunset hues
Are discolored and interspersed
By wild oat grasses and bushes
Who’ve come to quench a salty thirst

And sun tan in the ocean breeze,
Called by the same force as I
To gaze off a green forever
Where the Sargasso meets the sky.

And in the sliver of horizon,
Which proves to man the earth is round,
Is seen the truth man won’t accept:
It’s only now that life is found.

So what am I doing right now
To make use of my only one?
I’m standing on these sand dunes
Creating unique sand art with my son.

The flows are marking silica
Where I teach him to write his name.
He’s too young to know better,
And I am dispossessed of shame.

The sea gulls stare at our shadows
Stretching out like tentacles behind.
The crabs welcome the distraction,
And Mother Nature does not mind.

And when he’s old and full of years
And his beard’s gray, and I am gone,
He’ll think of making sand art here
And will fill young and not alone.

Primordial Rites

~ Iyan Igma

The torrents have left their mark here,
As mud puddles and ditches show.
The oils slip by past battered grass;
Debris’s amazed how fast it flows.

I walk along admiring floods
Like others seek out Christmas lights,
Enthralled to see creeks overflow
In nature’s primordial rites.

When not splashing, I walk on curbs
As if I could relive childhood
By trying not to fall off now,
Walking whithersoe’er I would.

This past spring the pollen’s gold dust
Dyed the rushing flood waters green,
Restoring natural colours
Back to afflicted living things.

But now ’tis fall and the brown grass
Is littered with wet clumps of snow
Where cotton’s escaped from the trucks,
Littering the roadsides below.

The First Sweet Grass of the Season

~ Iyan Igma

It calls to me with tempting words,
Begging my teeth to masticate
And feel the fibers fill my mouth
As its juice makes me salivate.

And all it does to bid me this
Is sunburn in a field of spring
Invoking a spell of mem’ry
Long dusty of once winnowing

The chaff from this abundant weed
That I was forbidden to chew.
I hesitate somehow restrained,
Knowing what one my age should do.

Perhaps it’s just to prove a point,
But I cross to the field’s red patch,
Pluck a stalk, clean it, and try not
To think of germs or what might hatch.

I want this moment raw and wild,
Like the millions had as a boy.
The first sweet grass of the season
Nonetheless fails to give me joy.

I doubt it’s because its taste’s changed,
Though it’s nothing like in childhood.
For worry hinders enjoying
The simple pleasures a child would.

Though it’s a tart and pulpy mess,
I chew more as a reminder
Of the times when I truly lived.
The taste’s sour; nostalgia’s kinder.

Going to Pick My Switch

~ Iyan Igma

I went to the sassafras tree;
With every step my feet were lead,
Knowing, should I not return soon,
There would be even more to dread.

With tears streaming down my face
Like a mountain thawing in Spring,
My moistened eyes tried to decide
Which vessel of pain I’d bring

Back for a well-deserved switching,
Though this seemed punishment plenty.
Why make a child pick their own doom?
I thought as a cognoscenti

Of switches, which one shall I pick?
A skinny, limber limb that stings?
But if it breaks, I shall return
To pick and face more swats and swings.

I don’t want to get one too wide,
But which is a suitable size?
The one I picked seemed far too big;
I tried not to think of the cries

That I would yelp, unless I could
Find the strength to bite back the pain.
But if I masked how much it hurt,
I might have to pick one again,

Since it was not enough to teach
Me the ills of sin the hard way.
Maybe they thought picking switches
Was the worst torture anyway.

Pummelos

~ Iyan Igma

Pummelos, with their citric smell,
Make me live in memories past
When I was still a little child
With no hopes innocence would last,

Nor a hope Christmas would bring
The coveted toys of all the rest.
A pummelo was my present then,
And I considered myself blest.

My family gathered around me and
The well-adorned, emblazoned tree,
Whose twinkling lights are like the souls
Of those passing in and out of humanity.

I was hardened by poverty, death,
Friendlessness, and low self-esteem,
So any gifts beyond the pummelo
Would be a suspicious dream.

The surreal chanced as, awkwardly,
I accepted some stranger’s gift
Out of the box on the doorstep
Left in hopes our spirits to lift.

The whatnots animated us,
According to our childish nature,
But proved a bit unsettling to
My pride strong and mature.

How dare they think us poor?
They needn’t think; it was the truth.
How is it I ruined their efforts
With feelings wild and uncouth?

How is it the cherished present
Was one I’d resigned myself to,
While such trinkets as I’d wanted
Became meaningless anew?

I sat and slowly ate my pummelo,
And its tartness has stayed with me
And caused me to resent gifts given
For sympathy of my poverty.

The years have died like many men,
But, unlike men, will not come back,
But remind me when I had naught
There was nothing that I did lack.

Tracking Your Influences

~ Iyan Igma

I can see where your paw prints lay
As lazy as sleeping cattle;
You left them in the sand one day
After the rain’s recent battle.

By such deluges freshly strewn,
The sand was begging to be trod;
Its past impressions picayune
And temp’rary will have no laud.

You’re all I see in silica,
Joining a collection of tracks
In this woodland basilica
That droppings as well scarcely lacks.

Amid desperate survival,
I can just make out the faint signs,
Left long ere the land grew nival,
Of passers through my copse of pines.

By some means they have persevered
The erosive forces of time,
Perchance ’cause their impact endeared
Them, or their acts were much maligned.

Regardless, they’re but faint mem’ries,
Unlike the lunar footprints found
That will last through eternities,
Long after I cease to be ’round.