The Big Drain

[Jimmy O'Connell]

The Big Drain

The big drain was filled to its brim with
rainbow-greased inky water where
cars my grandad repaired were washed.

The yard flooded during heavy
summer thunder showers and we’d be
shin high in wellingtons while

he would sweep dirt turned sloppy
mud into the drain. After flooding
I would be warned about playing

near the drain, but I never heeded.
Then one day I got a brand new
Matchbox military ambulance,

its tiny red cross stamped on camouflage
green. Peter pleaded with me to let him
play with it. I warned him not to play

near the drain, but he did not heed.
I watched it slip out of his hands
and roll into the watery maw. My panic

turned to angry scream and a nodule
of knowledge thumped in my chest.
It was lost. Forever.

You were warned to stay away.
But it was not my fault, I cried,
He did it, probably on purpose.
You could open the drain
for me, get it out! But it was gone. Down

into the netherworld of the town sewage
system. I never asked him back
to play - have no memory of ever

seeing him again – only that
first knowledge of the perversity
that is inheld in all things desired.

[mat james]

A Buddha moment, Jimmy.
I suppose you should thank Peter for taking you to enlightenment.
Upon this Petra I will build my Rattan.

I know the suffering you endure.
I was about the same age when I lent my friend my telescope.
And I had waited so long for that larger moon
and those deeper, brighter stars.
He dropped it. Smashed the lens.
We were "shattered". All three of us.
...and all was fog.




Mat.

[Jimmy O'Connell]

Yes, Mat...

I guess we've all had them... those awful moments of loss... not of something or someone important, but the little insignificant ones... they all add up...

Ta for the comment

Jimmy