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Haggards
These are the places in between,
between the field and the mountain,
between the cattle and the sheep,
between the orchard and the road,
between the heather and the sea,
places where growth is curbed
by salt, or drought or altitude,
by rocks beneath, by standing water,
by wind, by fire, by lawlessness,
places for forgotten things, and things
no longer valued, the weeds and black bees,
the wrens and thrawn roots of Latin
the boys were taught in secret.
These are the places in between,
too small for the rich to care for,
where things grow stronger for neglect,
where questions thrive, and dreams, cut down
to the roots, grow hardy, come back strong.
Glittering
a crop of dark firs
rakes the crest of a green ridge
like a comb, teeth upward.
hills are cups of gold,
clouds form mountain ridges in
the wide field of sky
the wide open stare
of a primrose bank quickens
scrubbed and wind-bleached fields
shining in the sun,
the hard metallic glitter
of a crow’s black feathers
a rabbit on the scuffed
heel of a grassy hill-side shoe
scabby with heather
spring lambs stretching
on the fell-sides sun-warmed grass,
blinking at the world
Hanging the Bunting
You look into the fire and dream of home -
the mingled smell of lemongrass and bleach.
It has become unbearable, the loss
of something dim, less loved than longed for.
You crave your mother’s baking. She never baked.
You hang the trees with bunting, learn to knit,
make jam, pick ransoms, stitch the quilts
your Granny made and hated. Now you save
the seeds of plants your father weeded out.
You blacklead grates. Your stock is made from scratch.
It feels like fantasy, this flowery pastel nest,
kept far from politics and poverty alike,
but something else is stirring here, a cry of pain,
a knowledge of which battles must be fought,
and what the heart most needs, to take them on.
Hyssop for Repentance
This is the herb for a place of pain.
Its bitter tang is tonic for indulgence,
its blue bee-bothered flower tips
cleansing, dispersing phlegm and clotted blood,
old grief and lingering remorse.
Sprinkled with water from a hyssop twig,
the sufferer is purified and purged.
Something dies, an old life, an old poison -
and something flies free, forever gone.
The space is clear. Time to start again.
Scouring
Things get scoured when my life goes wrong -
my mother’s teaspoons, when she was ill,
a copper tray I polished till my hands were black
before your father’s funeral, the cobwebs
from behind the radiator. Things were scrubbed,
oiled and mended, folded and ironed, things
were put away then, and never again after.
Today I have washed the dressing gown
that hung behind the door, the large black shawl
you brought from India. These small acts of making good
divert me from what’s underneath our house,
tectonic shifts, small falls and stresses in the faith
we’ve had in weather, honesty, the common will
to kindness, your solid presence in my life.
Poetic Voices
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