Stilling her with a sight so fair,
In weaving threads of grace,
Your blue cream twists lace the air.
Flitting spins, danced fast pace,
Low swooping over peat brown waters,
Swallow to catch the river hatch.
The Singing of your labour sought a
Quiet in her whole, unmatched
By any other living beat,
You are her landing, bird without feet.
Before the smoke of this city sets a fog
That settles and smudges upon return,
Remember sitting in a pocket of time
Soaking up the sunshine of a country dwelling,
When awoken by a gentle morning,
You ran, dream into dream.
Quiet hours built your days,
And Looking out over fields of years,
On crop covered hill top you stopped
To watch swallows scribble their stories,
Dipping blue ink upon sheets of sky.
Sat in stillness, dusk kissed
Your heart listened to the questions
The land demanded of you,
And Whispered a song of home.
Tripping into Little lanes, hedges
High with heather, lens cap our view.
Missing teeth of old stone barns
Fill me with an ancient time, a wind sigh
Aged with memory dances over me.
Through two lenses,
Yours and yours removed
You map our way with city feet,
Watch a swallow’s wing
Blink at the sky.
We find her in the lambing barn,
A sweep of grey tied away
From an outdoor face.
Treading down thirsty straw
We stand on the edge
Of mud as if a precipice,
Her thick tongue coats us in tellings,
Of unknown names and whispered coming homes.
By your quiet side my feet move
On the bones of the earth and tie me
To my heritage, safe in the shapes of my childhood land,
My jigsaw bit fits.
A May breeze carries a full berry accent,
A deep-eyed girl puts a hat on the sun,
To award her self some shade.
Now wrapped in the chrysalis of a story,
Stick insects leap
From a childhood hedge.
Newspaper in hand, pink socks stand,
To see a plane kiss green ground.
The sun cools itself in a bath of deep sea
A north wind adds jumpers to
Woollen backed benches,
Caked in warmth, six shapes bend
In laughter, wheeled red ironsides rides in.
Lighting up the darkness,
A pit of fire sizzles sausages and fish,
Whiskey speaks a glow onto our cheeks
A Swedish candle burns a flame
My heart knew long ago
Its flickering waves sail on
Into the sea of night and left adrift,
In morning lights find its true anchorage.
Though standing tall
Slight hands betray you,
The Signature of your mother,
Carried through death
Whispers fragility.
Swaying birch thin,
Waving out lost
Amongst a forest
Of silver and black,
May poling around, you
Dance outside yourself,
Wrapping up in ribbons
Your heart, to stand
Just apart from love.
In you I find the edge of me
And hang with a finger tip
From its uncertain cliff.
I miss you every time, and
Every time I miss,
You, all over again.
Deep heart beats break
Against your stone.
They do not talk of death,
Their black hearts turned sunwards.
Red dressed Spanish ladies,
Flamenco dancers, Passion painted
Amongst the carnival of hues,
Browns and greens and blues.
Softly swaying, rhythms slow
In the whispering cool that blows
The hot heat out of summer,
Bearing red petalled breasts up to suns touch.
They do not talk of death
But pulse life
Sucked from earth through stem,
To sunlight again.
Early lights, eyes full,
Dawn tucks night time into bed.
Naked in this infant light
You dance to the drum of my heart,
Unsteady on your feet,
My gentle giant and I,
In the yellow brick box.
You taste of last night,
Eat me up in smiles.
Icelandic Takk sings,
Fall asleep in my dreams.
Wearing your tales,
The jewellery of your stories hang
From my ears, wrap around my wrist
Names like fizzy sweets
Get their first taste
Rolling over their shapes,
Foreign spices on my tongue.
Jeans feel unfamiliar
Hold too much in,
Forgotten fibres against skin.
You bind a blanket sewn with scents
To keep out the air of a home
Fresh returned painted,
New colours clash
Painfully against the lush
Of England’s drunken climbs and falls
Into a time before mangoes
And sea wolves.
