CONVENIENT
Though maybe not all
that too convenient
easy to swing between
good and evil
I remember the swing
at the bottom of that extra piece
of garden my father bought
but then he had
to surrender when
he lost his job
got fired and
then we hightailed it
whole family
off to South Africa
(thirty years before
the advent
of democracy)
once my father pushing us
on that swing (me first
and then Sharon, my
younger sister
once, only
once
but have to be grateful for
every precious moment able
to squeeze
out of him
my turn
pushing me higher and higher
almost as if
he half
wished to catapult me
up into the
stratosphere, perhaps
even beyond
if not
out into deep space, then
perhaps land
(coincidentally)
somewhere
in Africa
Ah, somewhere
right on the tip of Africa
on the way to
a student protest
reading
out in a kind of deep space
he who best understood
the nature
of balance
darkness and light, interfused,
interconnected, thinking
dualities
beyond them
and now
in this trade, I swing
between extremities as if
it is my
very nature
hard truths of childhood and
strange philosophers having
fixed me this way
(convenient to
say).
