Sometimes
By Adam Ford
A quote, also translated into Dutch, appeared on a card
This was handed out to customers of the Frisian Food Banks
We don’t always make
a difference. We get tired.
We despair. We say mean
things. We keep on going.
There’s the sky. There’s
the sun. You bring berries
from our garden and apples.
I make sauce from the mint
at our back door, yoghurt
from the dairy and your
home-preserved lemons.
If you’re lucky enough to
be on this side of the sunrise,
take that luck and find some
things you can share. Berries
or lemons. Eggs or kindness.
Sometimes your kids succeed
and sometimes they come to
you for comfort. We circle
back around to be together
in bed again. These atoms
have never been in this
exact configuration before.
The moment is ours and
sometimes it isn’t. It’s hard
sometimes, sometimes not.
Hard can be good, but not
at the time. It’s all connected.
Sometimes we want something
and sometimes we get it.
Adam Ford
Adam Ford lives and writes on unceded Jaara Country, in the town of Chewton in Central Victoria, Australia. He is the author of the poetry collections The Third Fruit is a Bird, Not Quite the Man for the Job, and the forthcoming speculative poetry collection Choosing Sides. Dance to the Anticlinal Fold, Adam’s spoken-word walking tour about time, geology and landscape, is available at anticlinalfold.com. Adam’s poems have appeared in cordite, Overland, Going Down Swinging, Best Australian Poems and Asimov’s Science Fiction.