To Catch You When You Land

Somewhere there’s an emotional broom
you use to clean the corridors of your new
confidence, a bristle-rigid hearth-and-yard
broom wielded with unbendable tenor; it
knows no history – no precedents familiar.

I am easily swept clear as straw stirs weakly
in winds of change, objections shirred and
disposed without pretence in the same tidy
bin of rewarded indulgence. You say good
behaviour be damned, you’re in my way.

My concerns no-longer have savour, the
need and the hour falls spare of your focal
span – self-preoccupation lends no capacity
for wider returns, this closed mood has you
consummate, immaculate, potently demurring.

Then rings the change. Caring, sharing, sweet
ideas, tenderness together (but not too close
or familiar) – engendering emotional bonds
tethered to a hurricane; I tremble in fear, cower
in a calm where the storm gathers again.

I am sure one day soon you will ask, why
are you here? I have asked myself this same
question a thousand times, pondered my reply
until it is etched indelibly in my conscience.
I will be here to catch you when you land.
© I.D. Carswell 2006