Alys Conran

Three Poems

littlebrother s
 
Cartographer Standing

They told you stand barefoot, the cool grass
spreading for the soles of your feet; weight
through your heels, and the pressure of your
tall body through your legs. Feel your feet,
they said, feel the ground, the earth below.
What do you feel? And you, cartographer,
followed the route from skull to collar bones
into your shoulder girdle, ribcage, and down
your segmental spine, into a heavy pelvis,
hip sockets, femur, knee, fibula, the collection
of bones we call feet, and then, what was it?
In this ungardened new-age, ageless place,
beside the old A5 route, Dublin to London,
people walked those centuries, were drawn
by horses, play swift car radios now, small,
shrill against the heavy valley, you weighed
against a thought. Bones, you thought. Bones.
 

Comments are closed.