Dear Brother
by crisrizz
My brother and I.
Cancun, 1993
Dear brother,
do you remember childhood?
It was an after-school afternoon.
It was sunlight filtered through a sheet of ice,
a slice of March,
breathless
Earth beneath our boots,
the pirouette of
willow branches, a still show of pine trees
painting patterns in the sky.
The cold arms of a concrete bridge.
We walked home from school,
dangling our wooden feet over
the shallow creek.
You smiled your wide, genuine smile,
a semi-sundial of innocence,
Pinocchio waiting to come to life.
A crooked-eyed puppet
carved from confidence, self-delusion,
a crippled marionette.
Trapped
in the game of fox and cat,
you crept towards murky waters
only to be
swallowed
by a shark.
And I stayed on the bridge,
playing in your shadow,
watching your smile fade away,
shaded by the sun.
The willow tree wept for you,
shedding fluttering tears of
almond-shaped leaves.
*This poem was originally published in The Music Makers by Cristina Rizzuto (Blaurock Press, 2012)
Cristina's Library 
May I ask, did your brother drown? Or am I missing the point. I only ask because this poem hit me right in my heart. Tears started flowing for my brother who did drown at age nine while in my care (I was eleven). I never truly grieved for him until I was an adult, and read the poem by W.B. Yeats:
, …”Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand….”
He was such a free spirit…
Hi Ierene,
Thanks for your comment, and for sharing your story. I am so sorry to hear of your tragic loss at such a young age – I know that grief can strike suddenly, at any time, even long after an event has occurred…I am honoured that my poem has touched you. But to clarify to you and other readers, my brother did not drown – he is very much alive and well. Drowning in the poem is meant to be figurative, a metaphor for the consequences of wrong choices he had made as a young adult, choices that lead him down the wrong path. His life has changed for the better now. Thanks again for reading.
CR