afternoons at the bedside
a sequence
changeable life
of a cloud
chair
with nine lives
glow-worms in Wales
buckling and unbuckling the night
*
my bygone fortune
crouching
like a dwarf in a well in a fairy tale
*
the pleasures of being so
*
white concrete steps
of the new dam at Argal
long troughs
full of white foam
*
a coincidence of zebras
beehives of the world
a cobweb of common sense
*
to keep the colours fresh
she dips her paint brush
into the clear water of the burn
*
when the hare dies
the fox mourns*
*
cedar tree by a waterfall
pinches of light
seven Septembers done in shadow-stitch
the field’s nickname
afternoons at the bedside
*
near-dark darkening away
on the drumskin of estuary water
last faint light going
from the water runnels
night coming
*
blue-painted shrine
cut into the massive trunk
of a old chestnut:
the holy family
(votive scraps tied to the lower branches)
*
these are the paintings he painted
after his wife’s death
*
cats
have inspired
many choreographers**
*
day shining
like a new pitchfork
grace-notes
of the clouds veering away
abstinent light
slanting through the open fan
of the birch tree
a grammar of light
long-lost alphabets of light
*
a bridge built
solely by women
over sixty years ago
across a wild stretch
of the river
*
a compendium of ancient sighs
*
the prayer room
and the prayer garden
with a fountain
where the saint washed his hands
bloodstained
from carrying his severed head for miles
*
this year
so much daughtering
so much mothering
*
only a ditch of muddy water
remains
where the Tower
of Babel stood
but when the Babylonian scribe
made a clay map
of the known world
he put Babylon at the centre
ringed by a protective circle
of bitter water
and paid great attention
to the houses of gods, monsters and heroes
dwelling at the rim of the world
in eternal deliberation
*
a tiny thought
takes heart in me
how beautiful to be used
by unknown hands
especially those I was friends with
long ago
in the wedding ring era
Sources:
when the hare dies:
from the Middle English poem, sourced here from The Leaping Hare by George Ewart Evans and David Thomson, Faber 1972
cats have inspired: source untraced