The Barman at 2am
What is meant to be will be, I say.
The planets will align, the sun will shine
on the righteous. Have faith in what’s at play
your paths will cross someday
life will find a way
and he says that’s just lazy.
What is life, if all we are
is carved already on distant stars?
A karaoke cover on a tired guitar.
A Channel 9 rerun in a lonely bar.
We are worth more, he says,
than Que Sera Sera.
What combination of choices
or chances; convoluted circumstances
led us to this question
that has no answers?
It seems to me
that he is the swallow in flight
and I take comfort
in its return.
The Baton
This morning, my body whispers
it’s time. The pain is gone.
The continuous buzz of the last few years
that hummed you’re sick you’re sick you’re sick
has taken a bow and this time I allow no encore.
The whisper flows on through
once shattered synapses healed with golden glue
and the words I need are where I left them
tarrying on the bench like car keys.
I walk for miles and swim in the ocean until my lungs should burst
but still, there is no unsteadiness in my stance
and there is no fear. It’s time, she whispers.
Today I start running, holding out my hand to receive the baton
from whatever fate it was
that brought me to the day that I broke.
I see my choices
and I am more whole
than I ever thought possible.
Catherine Hannah lives and writes in Geelong, Victoria with her husband, rabbits and chickens. In 2020, Catherine sustained life changing injuries which resulted in her book “The Ballad of the Bunny and Other Poems: The Diary of a Car Crash and Beyond”. Earlier this year, she published “The Life of Sir Dunstan Pigglesworth” – a true story told through rhyme and her own illustrations – to support families through grief. To find out more, please visit catherinehannahpoetry.com or search ‘Catherine Hannah Poetry’ on the Socials.
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