Mother’s Hands
Advertisement for Myers Gloves, by Margaret Watkins (Canada), 1920s.
Mother’s Hands
Strong enough to lift me
each time I couldn’t rise. Soft
as cotton wool, washing
dirt from scrapes and tears
from eyes. Firm enough
to model clay
and boys, to bowls
and men, yet fine
when stroking ivory keys–
Für Elise and Clair de Lune.
They’d curl through each long evening
around her only vice, in a holder
like Audrey’s, that never left her side.
I’m thinking of her hands now–
strong and wild and free; missing
her hands now, as I watch ashes
blow to sea.
Ryan Stone
Written for the 20 poem challenge at Ekphrastic, September 2016.
First published at Ekphrastic, September 2016
The Walk
I wake a full hour early
for the rare gift
of a walk in the woods
with my father.
He is a silent giant
among misty ghost gums.
I tell him, Watch!
See how fast I can run.
He doesn’t yell when I trip
and fall, but lifts me
with unfamiliar,
calloused hands.
At the end of the trail
I study my grazes—jagged
and bloody. He tells me
he’s leaving my mum.
On the walk home
I gaze at the gum trees
and fragmented clouds, thinking
they should look different somehow.
Ryan Stone
first published at Poetry Nook, 1st place Week 185
Owl Song
Full moon
to you I sing
this tune—
bright streams,
hidden dells, clouds
and dreams
sublime.
Ours to share, for
all time.
Ryan Stone
Numb
In empty spaces
echoes fade to silent grief,
whispers on the wind
Ryan Stone
The Journey Home
She tells me her pain is a squall,
sudden and vicious, like a flash
storm whipping in from Bass Strait
to batter King Island.
Do you remember our Island, Garth?
Her doctors build shelters; nurses
batten hatches, but this tempest
won’t blow over. She says her pain is a vulture now,
circling the desert on threadbare wings.
A glass of water if you please, Garth?
With beak and claw, it slashes and rips
nerve endings, drinks color from her eyes.
The pain is no longer squall or vulture,
she whispers, but a flutter of pages.
One last story before bed, dear Garth?
I don’t tell her that I’m her grandson—
not her brother Garth, stolen by war.
She’s a thin sheet stretched over an empty
bed; a gull’s cry on the wind.
– Ryan Stone
first published by Eunoia Review, June 2019
In Passing
After all the years, the heart-shaped
promises, a Ponts des Arts love lock
one Spring, it has come now to this —
a sterile room, too-small-for-two bed,
plastic flowers, faint urine smell.
Standing bedside, she strokes and hums,
remembers a warm night by the sea.
The setting sun kisses white hair
golden. Tremors become twitches,
become silence.
Ryan Stone
Hourglass
We walk the tide line
barefoot on the morning sand,
your steps close by mine.
Later, I return alone
but no trace of us remains.
Ryan Stone
Ghosts at Dawn
Too thin –
you now exist
within
a pause
as dawn retracts
her claws
from day;
you fade, while I
must stay.
Ryan Stone
Queen of Nothing
I barely remember how the hues of December
cast sepia waves through her hair. Those words
she first uttered: out here there be monsters,
seemed a plea, not a thing to beware.
A quick realisation: she sailed a maelstrom
mainlining a vein named despair. Lost
within dreams of heroine queens,
I drew heart-shaped clouds in thin air.
It felt like I’d woken when she said yes, you’re broken
but I’ll show you real broke, if you dare. As our ship
ran aground, frayed dreams dragged us down;
to the depths of her fell monster’s lair.
Ryan Stone
days of stone 