Succession

Succession

Stephen McCausland

The mess of this place,

I want to lie down on the sixty
year old hardwood and be swallowed up
and beam at all the cheap, tacky love.
For it to be in me, and
for the burgundy-chipped paint to
chisel its way backwards into my
rough-hewn story, all unannounced.
There are curtains here
keeping the fog at bay,
Blink and miss a breeze as trivial
as your life and alive among
the sprays of cedar.

that breeze, like this place,
a kind of swelling,
a sinusoidal providence of nature
that reminds us one day,
here will change forever

Still, I want to expire here, dust and wrinkles.
The hidden fava beans,
the whiskey tastes old-fashioned
next to the licking flame & we look out on horizons behind glass older than us
to mull over piecemeal dreams
and succession.

The forest, on the other hand, is there until it is
not, until it is again. A forest is nothing
like a song we’ve known,
the stories it tells, it
tells not to be known,
but to make fertile the ground beneath itself.

the stories of here, wobbly stools
and carpet stains, pass selectively
onwards, soiling ever.
I never thought loving here
would mean leaving, but slipping through
fingers too clumsy for fragile love,
I turn my mess under
for the next of rank to heed their solstice.

---

Stephen McCausland
Poet & Job Coach

Stephen is a poet, urbanist, and an advocate for communal living. He helps manage a small social enterprise for people with diverse abilities in Abbotsford, BC. This is his first published poem. You can read more of his work on Instagram (@sdmccaus).

Photography by T L