As the years turn,
I think more about departures
and disappearances,
that growing crowd of who
and what has left from me,
trying not to feel it
as a hollowing out,
as blasts of icy wind
through broken windows.
I hold close the knowledge
that there is likely more to come.
Yes I say to loss and grief,
yes to being bereft and diminished
but thank you for coming with me
part of the way.
I sit with what once was —
like the treasured brag book
left at a hostel in Samos,
and the lives, the loves, that whole community
at the Jewish section of the cemetery
at Centennial Park.
It is brief, this life,
however long it is.
Now I think
of those constant companions,
the noisy
wheeling
flock of words
with me
all these years,
sent out
with familiar ease,
homing pigeons
always coming
back to me.
I know one day, some of them
will fly the coop
and not return,
and the alarm that might then
come to my face
when I can still apprehend
and mourn the loss,
before the white noise of static
takes even this away,
as it did to Charlie Gordon
in Flowers for Algernon,
and others, non-fictional,
closer to home,
shadows of themselves,
no longer recognising,
no longer recognisable.
David Adès is the author of the collections Mapping the World, Afloat in Light, The Heart’s Lush Gardens and most recently, A Blink of Time’s Eye, as well as the chapbooks Only the Questions Are Eternal and The Toolmaker and Other Poems. In association with WestWords, David was involved in the production of the documentary film Robert Adamson: The Ultimate Commitment released in 2024. Also, in association with WestWords, David is the host of the poetry podcast series “Poets’ Corner”. David lives in Sydney with his wife and three children.