Growing up, father always told me to stay away from the south side-
He told me monstrous stories
of an end to the world we knew,
and a suffering unlike any other.

I’ve heard whispers-
From pesky seagulls
-Forbidden-
-Always trying to catch me
- - I should stay away, but I cannot.

When they stop to gossip
- - Like chatty chicks - -
About a place of great beauty,
Grand and marvelous,
Rainbows and mist over a pond of plenty-
“The Falls”

“The Falls”
They say in a slow awed whisper,
As slow as an expeditious seagull can whisper, that is
And as a result, I too am awed.
For seagulls are all knowing and rarely show hesitance in any matter,
Pumping their powerful wings, seeing the world I can only hear whispers of.

I should not be lurking as I am, watching them from the shallow pond,
looking up into the monstrous black oak -
But I am careful,
And I wait, and I look
searching for answers about this mysterious monster - -
About the powerful tide that sways my weak body south,
About the force that rips apart families, that brings ruin among my people-
“The Falls”

I am not alone.
My father, in all his shame
Wants to see the falls.
But we know the price,
We all do.
My father more then anyone.

My mother, the sad silly clown that she is
Swam,
And swam,
And swam,
She swam so far south that in the great falls she left us,
Left us for their mystery.
In a simple “Whoosh”

My father is gone now too,
Left in the same manor as my mother.
She left him in a right state
And now he leaves me,
For this.

I like to think they are together now,
On the other side of the great divide
I like to think their lives are better now,
On the other side of the great divide.