{"id":3706,"date":"2014-07-02T16:00:23","date_gmt":"2014-07-02T16:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3706"},"modified":"2014-07-03T10:55:37","modified_gmt":"2014-07-03T10:55:37","slug":"four-poems-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3706","title":{"rendered":"Four Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Winter Hymn<\/strong><\/p>\n

The snow melt falls
\nlike footsteps
\ncoming closer. You hesitate \u2014
\nyou hear your old friend\u2019s
\n\u2018Old too early,
\nwise too late.\u2019<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve learned his lesson.
\nHe left it that there\u2019s not
\ntoo much to forgive.
\nYou know the earth
\nabounds with bene\ufb01ts
\nand the chance to live<\/p>\n

on it\u2019s a privilege.
\nIn the bad year
\ngood hay\u2019s
\ngold bullion in the bank.
\nAs many as are
\nall the gone days<\/p>\n

are beacons and bounties \u2014
\nlike the salmon
\nspawning in three
\nrivers in the city
\nfor the \ufb01rst time
\nin a century.<\/p>\n

As human as work is
\nin saw- and splitting it,
\nor \u2018winning\u2019 it, you feel
\nsomething divine
\nin wood and turf that warms
\nthe family hearth, to which you kneel.<\/p>\n

My friend says the mind of the honeybee
\nis a map of bloom.
\nIt conjures lavish crops.
\nThe ghost of winter snows
\npreserves a promise every February
\nin snowdrops.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 
\n
\nFish in the Sky<\/strong><\/p>\n

Roadside railings
\non raised ground\u2014
\nand you presume a river
\nbut \ufb01nd no stream.
\nSo you picture the bed
\nof a railway track.
\nNor sign of that.
\nNor padded path.
\nNor passageway.<\/p>\n

The heart of another
\nis a dark wood.
\nNow a woman comes to mind
\nwho didn\u2019t care for me.
\nI loved her anyway.
\nAnd again that man
\nin a lea \ufb01eld
\nwho says one thing
\nand means another . . .<\/p>\n

As the main road gestures
\nanywhere\u2014
\na bridge over nothing,
\na straddle of air.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 
\n
\nThe Night Itself<\/strong><\/p>\n

The shoulders of the evergreens
\nstoop beneath the weight
\nof winter weather and bear
\nthe woes of the world. Indoors
\nthe tulips writhe in their cut state.<\/p>\n

I look out at snow, each
\nof the \ufb02ickering \ufb02akes
\na living thing that ever was
\nas they incline towards earth\u2019s
\nimpetus to goodness, despite its aches<\/p>\n

and disappointments. Between
\nthe bounty of hard won
\nretreat and the hardship
\nof a separation
\nfrom somewhere and someone<\/p>\n

I was beside myself \u2014
\nfor we live in shadow,
\nscrabbling for that other thing,
\nthe real. Whose shade is it?
\nThat we might never know.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d favoured things
\non a human scale,
\nthe give and take of workers
\nwith a crosscut saw,
\nthe pitch fork, the square bale.<\/p>\n

For there are times when time
\nitself is cruel \u2014 like that attack
\nat Flanders when a tank brigade
\nengaged with a battalion
\non horseback<\/p>\n

while their commander
\nposted from Front Lines
\nto the manager of his estates
\nconcerns about the state
\nof crops and vines.<\/p>\n

When my old friend
\nfalters on a stair
\nor founders on a word or name
\nI see my fate, near or far\u2014
\nwho knows?\u2014 but there.<\/p>\n

For at our time of day
\nthe clock\u2019s determined tick
\nreiterates and reinforces
\nloss
\nin its monosyllabic<\/p>\n

march. Are they, the keys
\nto our lives, in the future
\nor the past, as we breathe in,
\nbreathe out, to weather
\na storm and find a suture,<\/p>\n

as we track a passage back
\nfrom unbelief
\nand come on wayside trees
\ntransformed by morning\u2019s grace\u2014
\nthe bud, the leaf,<\/p>\n

not to mention the bloom?
\nThis season is a skeleton
\nto which Spring will cling. The threads
\nof dark adopt new twists and turns
\nuntil the night itself is spun.<\/p>\n

 
\n
\nLight (in the Sorrow Field)<\/strong><\/p>\n

She tilled and toiled
\nin her own sorrow \ufb01eld
\nand found that grief\u2019s a place
\nnone knows till it\u2019s revealed<\/p>\n

by entering it. That there\u2019d be
\njoys of night
\nshe stored the gems of waking hours
\nand prayed to see morning\u2019s delight.<\/p>\n

A widow woman. Not like the bird
\nin constant fright
\nand \ufb02ight from hawks by day
\nand owls by failing light,<\/p>\n

she reckoned earth
\nand knew demise of cowslips
\nbetween hedgerow and silage strips
\na preview of apocalypse.<\/p>\n

What once were farms,
\nshe\u2019d say,
\nare now food factories.
\nBetween hay-<\/p>\n

and harvest-time
\nthe wheels of years accelerate
\ntill winter changes gears
\nand they capitulate.<\/p>\n

More like the hare, \ufb01eld faring,
\nand following its holy orders
\nto lie low, true to form,
\nto be itself within the borders<\/p>\n

of what\u2019s now, that she sees, through gate or gap,
\nand, though the wind cuts like a knife,
\ntells, Go, long lugged, long legg\u00e8d one,
\nrun for fun, run for your life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Winter Hymn The snow melt falls like footsteps coming closer. You hesitate \u2014 you hear your old friend\u2019s \u2018Old too early, wise too late.\u2019 You\u2019ve learned his lesson. He left it that there\u2019s not too much to forgive. You know the earth abounds with bene\ufb01ts and the chance to live on it\u2019s a privilege. 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