Collected Poems, page 22
of lessons, its blackboards the tombstones of learning. The books
in the Library stiffened and yellowed and curled. The portraits
of gone Headmistresses stared into space. The school groaned,
the tiles on its roof falling off in its sleep, its windows as white
as chalk. The grass on the playing fields grew like grass
on a grave. Doctor Bream stared from her hospital window
over the fields. She could see the school bell in its tower glint
in the evening sun like a tear in an eye. She turned away. Postcards
and get-well messages from the staff were pinned to the wall.
She took down a picture of Everest from Miss Dunn: We leave
Camp II tomorrow if the weather holds to climb the Corridor
to 21,000 feet. Both coping well with altitude. The Sherpas . . .
Mrs Mackay walked through Glen Strathfarrar, mad, muttering,
free; a filthy old pack on her back filled with scavenged loot –
banana, bottle, blanket, balaclava, bread, blade, bible. She sat
by a stream, filled her bottle and drank. She ate the crusts,
the fruit. Kingfisher. Eagle. Heron. Red deer. Midge. The Glen
darkened and cooled like History. Mrs Mackay lay in the heather
under her blanket, mumbling lines from Lear: As mad as the vex’d
sea; singing aloud; crowned with rank fumitor and furrow weeds,
with burdocks, hemlocks, nettles, cuckoo-flowers, darnel. . .
Syllables. Syllables. Sleep came suddenly, under the huge black,
the chuckling clever stars. The Head at her window looked north
to the clear night sky, to Pollux and Castor, Capella, Polaris,
and wondered again what could have become of Mrs Mackay.
Rough lads from the town came up to the school to throw stones
through the glass. Miss Batt and Miss Fife had moved
to a city. They drank in a dark bar where women danced, cheek
to cheek. Miss Batt loved Miss Fife till she sobbed and shook
in her arms. Stray cats prowled through the classrooms, lunging
at mice. Miss Fife dreamed that the school was a huge ship
floating away from land, all hands lost, steered by a ghost,
a woman whose face was the Head’s, was Miss Nadimbaba’s,
then Mrs Mackay’s, Mrs Lee’s, Miss Feaver’s, Miss Dunn’s,
Mrs Munro’s, Mrs Kaye’s, Miss Aherne’s, Señora Devizes’ . . .
She woke in the darkness, a face over hers, a warm mouth
kissing the gibberish from her lips. The school sank in her mind,
a black wave taking it down as she gazed at the woman’s face.
Miss Nadimbaba put down her pen and read through her poem.
The palms of her hands felt light, that talented ache. She altered
a verb and the line jumped on the page like a hooked fish. She needed
to type it up, but the poem was done. She was dying
to read it aloud to her aunt. She would open some wine.
In the hospital, a nurse brought warm milk and a pill to the Head,
who stared through the bars at the blackened hulk of the school.
By dawn, at John O’Groats, Mrs Mackay had finally run out of land.
She wrote her maiden name with a stick in the sand then walked
into the sea, steady at first, step by step, till the firm waves lifted her
under her arms and danced her away like a groom with a bride.
High above in the cold sky the seagulls, like schoolgirls, laughed.
Higher again, a teacher fell through the clouds with a girl in her arms.
A Dreaming Week
Not tonight, I’m dreaming
in the heart of the honeyed dark
in a boat of a bed in the attic room
in a house on the edge of the park
where the wind in the big old trees
creaks like an ark.
Not tomorrow, I’m dreaming
till dusk turns into dawn – dust, must,
most, moot, moon, mown, down –
with my hand on an open unread book,
a bird that’s never flown . . . distantly
the birdsong of the telephone.
Not the following evening, I’m dreaming
in the monocle of the moon,
a sleeping S on the page of a bed
in the tome of a dim room, the rain
on the roof, rhyming there,
like the typed words of a poem.
Not the night after that, I’m dreaming
till the stars are blue in the face
printing the news of their old light
with the ink of space,
yards and yards of black silk night
to cover my sleeping face.
Not the next evening, I’m dreaming
in the crook of midnight’s arm
like a lover held by another
safe from harm, like a child
stilled by a mother, soft and warm,
twelve golden faraway bells for a charm.
Not that night either, I’m dreaming
till the tides have come and gone
sighing over the frowning sand,
the whale’s lonely song
scored on wave after wave of water
all the wet night long.
Not the last evening, I’m dreaming
under the stuttering clock,
under the covers, under closed eyes,
all colours fading to black,
the last of daylight hurrying
for a date with the glamorous dark.
White Writing
No vows written to wed you,
I write them white,
my lips on yours,
light in the soft hours of our married years.
No prayers written to bless you,
I write them white,
your soul a flame,
bright in the window of your maiden name.
No laws written to guard you,
I write them white,
your hand in mine,
palm against palm, lifeline, heartline.
No rules written to guide you,
I write them white,
words on the wind,
traced with a stick where we walk on the sand.
No news written to tell you,
I write it white,
foam on a wave
as we lift up our skirts in the sea, wade,
see last gold sun behind clouds,
inked water in moonlight.
No poems written to praise you,
I write them white.
Gambler
She goes for the sound of the words, the beauty they hold
in the movement they make on the air, the shape
of the breath of a word leaving her lips like a whistle
or kiss. So Hyperion’s tips mean nothing to her, the form,
the favourites, whether the going is heavy or firm,
the horse a stinker or first-time blinkered. It’s words
she picks, names she ticks. That day it was Level Headed
at 10–1, two syllables each to balance the musical chime
of lev and head, the echoing el. She backed it to win
and then on a whim went for Indian Nectar at 7–2
to come in next. Indiannectar. Indiannectar. She stood
in a trance at the counter, singing it over and over
again in her head which was why, she guessed, she decided
to pick Sharp Spice (5–2 fav) to gallop in third – the words
seemed to fit. Most days she sits with her stump of a pen
writing the poems of bets. And how can she lose? Just listen
to some of the names that she didn’t choose – Heiress of Meath,
Springfieldsupreme, Mavis, Shush, Birth of the Blues.
The Light Gatherer
When you were small, your cupped palms
each held a candlesworth under the skin,
enough light to begin,
and as you grew
light gathered in you, two clear raindrops
in your eyes,
warm pearls, shy,
in the lobes of your ears, even always
the light of a smile after your tears.
Your kissed feet glowed in my one hand,
or I’d enter a room to see the corner you played in
lit like a stage set,
the crown of your bowed head spotlit.
When language came, it glittered like a river,
silver, clever with fish,
and you slept
with the whole moon held in your arms for a night light
where I knelt watching.
Light gatherer. You fell from a star
into my lap, the soft lamp at the bedside
mirrored in you,
and now you shine like a snowgirl,
a buttercup under a chin, the wide blue yonder
you squeal at and fly in,
like a jewelled cave,
turquoise and diamond and gold, opening out
at the end of a tunnel of years.
The Cord
for Ella
They cut the cord she was born with
and buried it under a tree
in the heart of the Great Forest
when she was exactly the length
of her mother’s nursing elbow
to the tip of her thumb.
She learned to speak and asked them,
though she was young yet,
what the cord had looked like –
had a princess spun it
from a golden spinning wheel?
Could the cord be silver? Was it real?
Real enough and hidden
in the roots of an ancient oak,
the tangled knot of a riddle
or the weird ribbon of a gift
in a poke. As she grew, she asked again
if the cord was made of rope,
then stared from the house she lived in
across the fields to the woods
where rooks spread their pages of wings
like black unreadable books
and the wind in the grass
scribbled sentences wherever she looked.
So she went on foot to the forest
and pressed her ear to the ground,
but not a sound or a movement,
not a breath or a word
gave her a hint where she should go
to hunt for her cord. She went deeper
into the forest, following a bird
which disappeared, a waving hand; shadows
blurred into one huge darkness,
but the stars were her mother’s eyes
and the screech of an owl in the tree above
was the sound of a baby’s cry.
Wish
But what if, in the clammy soil, her limbs
grew warmer, shifted, stirred, kicked off
the covering of earth, the drowsing corms,
the sly worms, what if her arms reached out
to grab the stone, the grooves of her dates
under her thumb, and pulled her up? I wish.
Her bare feet walk along the gravel path
between the graves, her shroud like washing
blown onto the grass, the petals of her wreath
kissed for a bride. Nobody died. Nobody
wept. Nobody slept who couldn’t be woken
by the light. If I can only push open this heavy door
she’ll be standing there in the sun, dirty, tired,
wondering why do I shout, why do I run.
North-West
for Frances
However it is we return to the water’s edge
where the ferry grieves down by the Pier Head,
we do what we always did and get on board.
The city drifts out of reach. A huge silvery bird,
a kiss on the lip of the wind, follows our ship.
This is where we were young, the place no map
or heritage guide can reveal. Only an X on a wave
marks the spot, the flowers of litter, a grave
for our ruined loves, unborn children, ghosts.
We look back at the skyline wondering what we lost
in the hidden streets, in the rented rooms,
no more than punters now in a tourist boom.
Above our heads the gulls cry yeah yeah yeah.
Frets of light on the river. Tearful air.
Death and the Moon
i.m. Adrian Henri
The moon is nearer than where death took you
at the end of the old year. Cold as cash
in the sky’s dark pocket, its hard old face
is gold as a mask tonight. I break the ice
over the fish in my frozen pond, look up
as the ghosts of my wordless breath reach
for the stars. If I stood on the tip of my toes
and stretched, I could touch the edge of the moon.
I stooped at the lip of your open grave
to gather a fistful of earth, hard rain,
tough confetti, and tossed it down. It stuttered
like morse on the wood over your eyes, your tongue,
your soundless ears. Then as I slept my living sleep
the ground gulped you, swallowed you whole,
and though I was there when you died,
in the red cave of your widow’s unbearable cry,
and measured the space between last words
and silence, I cannot say where you are. Unreachable
by prayer, even if poems are prayers. Unseeable
in the air, even if souls are stars. I turn
to the house, its windows tender with light, the moon,
surely, only as far again as the roof. The goldfish
are tongues in the water’s mouth. The black night
is huge, mute, and you are further forever than that.
Now no discourse, except it be of Love;
Now I can break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep
Upon the very naked name of Love.
SHAKESPEARE,
Two Gentlemen of Verona (II, iv, 137–9)
You
Uninvited, the thought of you stayed too late in my head,
so I went to bed, dreaming you hard, hard, woke with your name,
like tears, soft, salt, on my lips, the sound of its bright syllables
like a charm, like a spell.
Falling in love
is glamorous hell; the crouched, parched heart
like a tiger ready to kill; a flame’s fierce licks under the skin.
Into my life, larger than life, beautiful, you strolled in.
I hid in my ordinary days, in the long grass of routine,
in my camouflage rooms. You sprawled in my gaze,
staring back from anyone’s face, from the shape of a cloud,
from the pining, earth-struck moon which gapes at me
as I open the bedroom door. The curtains stir. There you are
on the bed, like a gift, like a touchable dream.
Text
I tend the mobile now
like an injured bird.
We text, text, text
our significant words.
I re-read your first,
your second, your third,
look for your small xx,
feeling absurd.
The codes we send
arrive with a broken chord.
I try to picture your hands,
their image is blurred.
Nothing my thumbs press
will ever be heard.
Name
When did your name
change from a proper noun
to a charm?
Its three vowels
like jewels
on the thread of my breath.
Its consonants
brushing my mouth
like a kiss.
I love your name.
I say it again and again
in this summer rain.
I see it,
discreet in the alphabet,
like a wish.
I pray it
into the night
till its letters are light.
I hear your name
rhyming, rhyming,
rhyming with everything.
Forest
There were flowers at the edge of the forest, cupping
the last of the light in their upturned petals. I followed you in,
under the sighing, restless trees and my whole life vanished.
The moon tossed down its shimmering cloth. We undressed,
then dressed again in the gowns of the moon. We knelt in the leaves,
kissed, kissed; new words rustled nearby and we swooned.
Didn’t we? And didn’t I see you rise again and go deeper
into the woods and follow you still, till even my childhood shrank
to a glow-worm of light where those flowers darkened and closed.
Thorns on my breasts, rain in my mouth, loam on my bare feet, rough
bark grazing my back, I moaned for them all. You stood, waist deep,
in a stream, pulling me in, so I swam. You were the water, the wind
in the branches wringing their hands, the heavy, wet perfume of soil.
I am there now, lost in the forest, dwarfed by the giant trees. Find me.
River
Down by the river, under the trees, love waits for me
to walk from the journeying years of my time and arrive.
I part the leaves and they toss me a blessing of rain.
The river stirs and turns, consoling and fondling itself
with watery hands, its clear limbs parting and closing.
Grey as a secret, the heron bows its head on the bank.
I drop my past on the grass and open my arms, which ache
as though they held up this heavy sky, or had pressed
against window glass all night as my eyes sieved the stars;
open my mouth, wordless at last meeting love at last, dry
from travelling so long, shy of a prayer. You step from the shade,
and I feel love come to my arms and cover my mouth, feel
my soul swoop and ease itself into my skin, like a bird
threading a river. Then I can look love full in the face, see
who you are I have come this far to find, the love of my life.
in the Library stiffened and yellowed and curled. The portraits
of gone Headmistresses stared into space. The school groaned,
the tiles on its roof falling off in its sleep, its windows as white
as chalk. The grass on the playing fields grew like grass
on a grave. Doctor Bream stared from her hospital window
over the fields. She could see the school bell in its tower glint
in the evening sun like a tear in an eye. She turned away. Postcards
and get-well messages from the staff were pinned to the wall.
She took down a picture of Everest from Miss Dunn: We leave
Camp II tomorrow if the weather holds to climb the Corridor
to 21,000 feet. Both coping well with altitude. The Sherpas . . .
Mrs Mackay walked through Glen Strathfarrar, mad, muttering,
free; a filthy old pack on her back filled with scavenged loot –
banana, bottle, blanket, balaclava, bread, blade, bible. She sat
by a stream, filled her bottle and drank. She ate the crusts,
the fruit. Kingfisher. Eagle. Heron. Red deer. Midge. The Glen
darkened and cooled like History. Mrs Mackay lay in the heather
under her blanket, mumbling lines from Lear: As mad as the vex’d
sea; singing aloud; crowned with rank fumitor and furrow weeds,
with burdocks, hemlocks, nettles, cuckoo-flowers, darnel. . .
Syllables. Syllables. Sleep came suddenly, under the huge black,
the chuckling clever stars. The Head at her window looked north
to the clear night sky, to Pollux and Castor, Capella, Polaris,
and wondered again what could have become of Mrs Mackay.
Rough lads from the town came up to the school to throw stones
through the glass. Miss Batt and Miss Fife had moved
to a city. They drank in a dark bar where women danced, cheek
to cheek. Miss Batt loved Miss Fife till she sobbed and shook
in her arms. Stray cats prowled through the classrooms, lunging
at mice. Miss Fife dreamed that the school was a huge ship
floating away from land, all hands lost, steered by a ghost,
a woman whose face was the Head’s, was Miss Nadimbaba’s,
then Mrs Mackay’s, Mrs Lee’s, Miss Feaver’s, Miss Dunn’s,
Mrs Munro’s, Mrs Kaye’s, Miss Aherne’s, Señora Devizes’ . . .
She woke in the darkness, a face over hers, a warm mouth
kissing the gibberish from her lips. The school sank in her mind,
a black wave taking it down as she gazed at the woman’s face.
Miss Nadimbaba put down her pen and read through her poem.
The palms of her hands felt light, that talented ache. She altered
a verb and the line jumped on the page like a hooked fish. She needed
to type it up, but the poem was done. She was dying
to read it aloud to her aunt. She would open some wine.
In the hospital, a nurse brought warm milk and a pill to the Head,
who stared through the bars at the blackened hulk of the school.
By dawn, at John O’Groats, Mrs Mackay had finally run out of land.
She wrote her maiden name with a stick in the sand then walked
into the sea, steady at first, step by step, till the firm waves lifted her
under her arms and danced her away like a groom with a bride.
High above in the cold sky the seagulls, like schoolgirls, laughed.
Higher again, a teacher fell through the clouds with a girl in her arms.
A Dreaming Week
Not tonight, I’m dreaming
in the heart of the honeyed dark
in a boat of a bed in the attic room
in a house on the edge of the park
where the wind in the big old trees
creaks like an ark.
Not tomorrow, I’m dreaming
till dusk turns into dawn – dust, must,
most, moot, moon, mown, down –
with my hand on an open unread book,
a bird that’s never flown . . . distantly
the birdsong of the telephone.
Not the following evening, I’m dreaming
in the monocle of the moon,
a sleeping S on the page of a bed
in the tome of a dim room, the rain
on the roof, rhyming there,
like the typed words of a poem.
Not the night after that, I’m dreaming
till the stars are blue in the face
printing the news of their old light
with the ink of space,
yards and yards of black silk night
to cover my sleeping face.
Not the next evening, I’m dreaming
in the crook of midnight’s arm
like a lover held by another
safe from harm, like a child
stilled by a mother, soft and warm,
twelve golden faraway bells for a charm.
Not that night either, I’m dreaming
till the tides have come and gone
sighing over the frowning sand,
the whale’s lonely song
scored on wave after wave of water
all the wet night long.
Not the last evening, I’m dreaming
under the stuttering clock,
under the covers, under closed eyes,
all colours fading to black,
the last of daylight hurrying
for a date with the glamorous dark.
White Writing
No vows written to wed you,
I write them white,
my lips on yours,
light in the soft hours of our married years.
No prayers written to bless you,
I write them white,
your soul a flame,
bright in the window of your maiden name.
No laws written to guard you,
I write them white,
your hand in mine,
palm against palm, lifeline, heartline.
No rules written to guide you,
I write them white,
words on the wind,
traced with a stick where we walk on the sand.
No news written to tell you,
I write it white,
foam on a wave
as we lift up our skirts in the sea, wade,
see last gold sun behind clouds,
inked water in moonlight.
No poems written to praise you,
I write them white.
Gambler
She goes for the sound of the words, the beauty they hold
in the movement they make on the air, the shape
of the breath of a word leaving her lips like a whistle
or kiss. So Hyperion’s tips mean nothing to her, the form,
the favourites, whether the going is heavy or firm,
the horse a stinker or first-time blinkered. It’s words
she picks, names she ticks. That day it was Level Headed
at 10–1, two syllables each to balance the musical chime
of lev and head, the echoing el. She backed it to win
and then on a whim went for Indian Nectar at 7–2
to come in next. Indiannectar. Indiannectar. She stood
in a trance at the counter, singing it over and over
again in her head which was why, she guessed, she decided
to pick Sharp Spice (5–2 fav) to gallop in third – the words
seemed to fit. Most days she sits with her stump of a pen
writing the poems of bets. And how can she lose? Just listen
to some of the names that she didn’t choose – Heiress of Meath,
Springfieldsupreme, Mavis, Shush, Birth of the Blues.
The Light Gatherer
When you were small, your cupped palms
each held a candlesworth under the skin,
enough light to begin,
and as you grew
light gathered in you, two clear raindrops
in your eyes,
warm pearls, shy,
in the lobes of your ears, even always
the light of a smile after your tears.
Your kissed feet glowed in my one hand,
or I’d enter a room to see the corner you played in
lit like a stage set,
the crown of your bowed head spotlit.
When language came, it glittered like a river,
silver, clever with fish,
and you slept
with the whole moon held in your arms for a night light
where I knelt watching.
Light gatherer. You fell from a star
into my lap, the soft lamp at the bedside
mirrored in you,
and now you shine like a snowgirl,
a buttercup under a chin, the wide blue yonder
you squeal at and fly in,
like a jewelled cave,
turquoise and diamond and gold, opening out
at the end of a tunnel of years.
The Cord
for Ella
They cut the cord she was born with
and buried it under a tree
in the heart of the Great Forest
when she was exactly the length
of her mother’s nursing elbow
to the tip of her thumb.
She learned to speak and asked them,
though she was young yet,
what the cord had looked like –
had a princess spun it
from a golden spinning wheel?
Could the cord be silver? Was it real?
Real enough and hidden
in the roots of an ancient oak,
the tangled knot of a riddle
or the weird ribbon of a gift
in a poke. As she grew, she asked again
if the cord was made of rope,
then stared from the house she lived in
across the fields to the woods
where rooks spread their pages of wings
like black unreadable books
and the wind in the grass
scribbled sentences wherever she looked.
So she went on foot to the forest
and pressed her ear to the ground,
but not a sound or a movement,
not a breath or a word
gave her a hint where she should go
to hunt for her cord. She went deeper
into the forest, following a bird
which disappeared, a waving hand; shadows
blurred into one huge darkness,
but the stars were her mother’s eyes
and the screech of an owl in the tree above
was the sound of a baby’s cry.
Wish
But what if, in the clammy soil, her limbs
grew warmer, shifted, stirred, kicked off
the covering of earth, the drowsing corms,
the sly worms, what if her arms reached out
to grab the stone, the grooves of her dates
under her thumb, and pulled her up? I wish.
Her bare feet walk along the gravel path
between the graves, her shroud like washing
blown onto the grass, the petals of her wreath
kissed for a bride. Nobody died. Nobody
wept. Nobody slept who couldn’t be woken
by the light. If I can only push open this heavy door
she’ll be standing there in the sun, dirty, tired,
wondering why do I shout, why do I run.
North-West
for Frances
However it is we return to the water’s edge
where the ferry grieves down by the Pier Head,
we do what we always did and get on board.
The city drifts out of reach. A huge silvery bird,
a kiss on the lip of the wind, follows our ship.
This is where we were young, the place no map
or heritage guide can reveal. Only an X on a wave
marks the spot, the flowers of litter, a grave
for our ruined loves, unborn children, ghosts.
We look back at the skyline wondering what we lost
in the hidden streets, in the rented rooms,
no more than punters now in a tourist boom.
Above our heads the gulls cry yeah yeah yeah.
Frets of light on the river. Tearful air.
Death and the Moon
i.m. Adrian Henri
The moon is nearer than where death took you
at the end of the old year. Cold as cash
in the sky’s dark pocket, its hard old face
is gold as a mask tonight. I break the ice
over the fish in my frozen pond, look up
as the ghosts of my wordless breath reach
for the stars. If I stood on the tip of my toes
and stretched, I could touch the edge of the moon.
I stooped at the lip of your open grave
to gather a fistful of earth, hard rain,
tough confetti, and tossed it down. It stuttered
like morse on the wood over your eyes, your tongue,
your soundless ears. Then as I slept my living sleep
the ground gulped you, swallowed you whole,
and though I was there when you died,
in the red cave of your widow’s unbearable cry,
and measured the space between last words
and silence, I cannot say where you are. Unreachable
by prayer, even if poems are prayers. Unseeable
in the air, even if souls are stars. I turn
to the house, its windows tender with light, the moon,
surely, only as far again as the roof. The goldfish
are tongues in the water’s mouth. The black night
is huge, mute, and you are further forever than that.
Now no discourse, except it be of Love;
Now I can break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep
Upon the very naked name of Love.
SHAKESPEARE,
Two Gentlemen of Verona (II, iv, 137–9)
You
Uninvited, the thought of you stayed too late in my head,
so I went to bed, dreaming you hard, hard, woke with your name,
like tears, soft, salt, on my lips, the sound of its bright syllables
like a charm, like a spell.
Falling in love
is glamorous hell; the crouched, parched heart
like a tiger ready to kill; a flame’s fierce licks under the skin.
Into my life, larger than life, beautiful, you strolled in.
I hid in my ordinary days, in the long grass of routine,
in my camouflage rooms. You sprawled in my gaze,
staring back from anyone’s face, from the shape of a cloud,
from the pining, earth-struck moon which gapes at me
as I open the bedroom door. The curtains stir. There you are
on the bed, like a gift, like a touchable dream.
Text
I tend the mobile now
like an injured bird.
We text, text, text
our significant words.
I re-read your first,
your second, your third,
look for your small xx,
feeling absurd.
The codes we send
arrive with a broken chord.
I try to picture your hands,
their image is blurred.
Nothing my thumbs press
will ever be heard.
Name
When did your name
change from a proper noun
to a charm?
Its three vowels
like jewels
on the thread of my breath.
Its consonants
brushing my mouth
like a kiss.
I love your name.
I say it again and again
in this summer rain.
I see it,
discreet in the alphabet,
like a wish.
I pray it
into the night
till its letters are light.
I hear your name
rhyming, rhyming,
rhyming with everything.
Forest
There were flowers at the edge of the forest, cupping
the last of the light in their upturned petals. I followed you in,
under the sighing, restless trees and my whole life vanished.
The moon tossed down its shimmering cloth. We undressed,
then dressed again in the gowns of the moon. We knelt in the leaves,
kissed, kissed; new words rustled nearby and we swooned.
Didn’t we? And didn’t I see you rise again and go deeper
into the woods and follow you still, till even my childhood shrank
to a glow-worm of light where those flowers darkened and closed.
Thorns on my breasts, rain in my mouth, loam on my bare feet, rough
bark grazing my back, I moaned for them all. You stood, waist deep,
in a stream, pulling me in, so I swam. You were the water, the wind
in the branches wringing their hands, the heavy, wet perfume of soil.
I am there now, lost in the forest, dwarfed by the giant trees. Find me.
River
Down by the river, under the trees, love waits for me
to walk from the journeying years of my time and arrive.
I part the leaves and they toss me a blessing of rain.
The river stirs and turns, consoling and fondling itself
with watery hands, its clear limbs parting and closing.
Grey as a secret, the heron bows its head on the bank.
I drop my past on the grass and open my arms, which ache
as though they held up this heavy sky, or had pressed
against window glass all night as my eyes sieved the stars;
open my mouth, wordless at last meeting love at last, dry
from travelling so long, shy of a prayer. You step from the shade,
and I feel love come to my arms and cover my mouth, feel
my soul swoop and ease itself into my skin, like a bird
threading a river. Then I can look love full in the face, see
who you are I have come this far to find, the love of my life.
