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.
