Studies in Domesticity
1
A line of white towels in the wind.
A dog that is not my own.
‘I will paint the porch,’
my husband says, then changes
his mind. Why move, I wonder
when all is flux. Be still.
Like this beast by my side
running in his sleep.
2
White phlox dying in a blue vase.
I read the Greek myths in search of an old truth –
I began here by chance, oracular in my youth,
breathing Delphic fumes on to the page.
What terror. What hope. What frantic search
has led me to this impasse mute
white petals falling
on the polished floor.
3
The fan moves slowly above my head.
Summer revolving in heat and rain.
I said I would do it though scarce begun
while you build our house I wait
for silence to descend –
the longed-for quiet of nap time
when our son was young, you at work,
and I alone listening to the wind.
Native Song
The river speaks me
as a mother tongue rolls over my skin
cleansing polishing, polishing
to amber strength each limb
and lift of hand to write,
to swim, to reach the farther shore
or never land but flow on
flow on, water borne.
Snowlight
When it falls I go
out under the evening stars and begin
this lifting, this silent reach and turn
of my arms against the weight;
into the night the patterns flow
as my body flows, pale light of stars
above, and the silence, only the silence
to cradle the push and shove.
There are no words for this snow
that falls as I lift and turn, no one to see,
no one to hear, only the light on street
and sill, only the muffled whisper of song
long buried, this endless turning –
all that I know lies in snow.
|
The Swimmer
My father swims and in his arms the river carries
all the light away, the reach of hands far, far beyond the eye –
When he returns I stand aside, the shore a cup
to hold my fractured heart, we never speak –
But in the night the moon climbs through the pines,
shadows of soldiers against the wind –
And I see him there, swimming his long strokes against the current,
his white head bare, numinous in the path of light –
Now in my dreams I stand before him, eye to eye,
my thin hands shake his shoulders with an unknown strength –
As the dark rain of his too early death fills my mouth –
he weeps. And the river carries all the pain away.
Tsunami
The animals knew
and headed in silence for the hills.
I remember the light – a morning so clear –
I thought it would last all day. But on the horizon
soft wisps of cloud gathered.
And then the wave –
I lost you, the weight
of submerged bodies, forests, towns,
dragging us under. I thought I was safe.
From another country. Not prey to tides –
though once, long ago, I knew how to read the signs –
a gift of time, of slowness, of being in my body,
in secret. Sniffing the air.
Mole
A still point
invisible arrow after acres of evening
soon soon you will find it.
Through the long years of delving,
burrowed unfound in the dark –
eyes soft as a mole’s and equally startled
finally you will look up.
Thin line of a spine that furrow
bucking the earth you thought
to leave it behind too heavy too narrow;
still that insistent pushing against the dim
dry familiar what shadow?
A sudden slash of wings. The sky opens.
You hang clawed into light.
Healing Spirit
when the wind
comes up
every leaf
responds
when the air
is still
we wonder
where is life
now we are
caught
in the silence
of waiting
nothing moves
but our hope
take hands
breathe
breathe
feel the wind |
Daedalus in the New World
You would rise
in the bleakness of winter
an old man, mind gone blind
with remembering, deft fingers
stitching, cross-stitching
my skin with fire, sealing
land and sea and heaven
in a clutch of brittle birdbones.
You would speak
in the emptying of minutes,
teach me of beginnings, safe
now in your accomplished ends,
urge me to life, to the first
stiff lifting of limbs
against a pale and alien sky.
Daedalus,
you would give me knowledge,
clothe me in light, my pride
spread wide and high, beating
at the still white heart of the sun,
beating and believing in no wind,
no mean, only an arc of wheeling fire.
Rise then, I will
follow, rise until the sun beats
in the brain like a burnt out eye
and we hang in the withered air
no gods, but the dispossessed,
while the eye and the earth spin
round into falling, folding dreams
back into silence, and we lie
a litter of bones on a frozen sea. |
Reluctant Theseus
We wait
in the walled darkness –
two faces in profile
imprisoned. Still.
This has happened before.
You debate
a question of honour –
spooling the silence
into a skein of sound
to quell the blood mad
creature in my veins.
My body lies open
listening –
your words uncoil
through knotted brains
drop in my empty womb.
Here
put your hand on my belly
feel the pulse
where it beats
in the nerved hollow
of flesh and bone –
your fingers twitch
unravel my skin.
Come now
you may resolve the puzzle,
find a possible answer
in a not impossible risk –
Come
though I offer no clues
for a safe return.
Enter
the darkness. |
The Wooing of Philoctetes
Say you love him
my father, say it,
take his hand soiled
as it is, the nails
blackened with scratching
the swarming roots of
his hair, thin and
bloodless, his hand
take it and say you
love him, my father
say it.
Hold fast, island man
with your clawed fingers,
feast on the firm sleek
hide of my father, feast
and know him for the few
ripe changes time has
wrought in your boyhood
friend, know him
island man and hold
him fast.
Stay now, stay
as the sun crawls high
across the heavens and
the sweat gathers like
old blood dark and heavy
between your hands, stay
and hear the wind drying
the sea against the shore,
cracking, your bones
fasten skin on skin, forming
knuckles white as scars
over an open wound.
Lay bare your arms
and say you love him
my father, island man
take hold and forgive. |
