NOURISHMENT

NOURISHMENT

The only thing is glass –

between me and the force
of water, crashing
against the boulders.

Picking up beetles:

Insect larvae, molluscs;
whilst dropping off
nourishment in minerals.

The male dipper sits

on his rock-café –
watchful and waiting
to wade the tapestry.

In this small slit of time;

my thirst is quenched
my senses caressed,
every pearl soothed.

I’m in my element

in the silent fall,
and my spirits rise;
as the dipper dives.

The café owner opens
the window to the noise;
silence falling into
the water-fall,

Crashing the lazy bay-
window of thought.

   

OINTMENT

OINTMENT                                                                                                                      

The soil is too shallow for roots
hands smell like damp clay -
an ointment.

The shallow
sombreness of cold weather
people - whose only joy
is pain in daily papers
and news at six and nine;

I sway but the earth
is strong enough
to hold me.

 

 

THE RHYTHM OF WOOD

THE RHYTHM OF WOOD

‘Hazel Burns well - made for fire

Ash splits and cuts easily. The thorn

is the best. Elders are useless’, he gestures

through gaps. His hands are veined

like leaves, he touches his cap in thought.

He is a character from this town land;

born of the substance of soil,

his pride in wood-piles.

A shy bachelor smile - and dragging a branch,

comments on the cold March - his furrowed brow

like his fields are full with life, and worn with the

tread of time, fertilized with the rapture of repetition

which feeds his ragged trouser philanthropy?

Forty acres with a rose-scented doorway to the past, 

and at last, reconciled to being a bachelor and a good

neighbour. I smile gratitude for his earthy routine -

the rhythm of wood freely given.

FUSHIA

FUSHIA

I sway in the swirling spring winds

I am starting to bloom but it’s late,

Small birds perch in the hedgerows -

I like the sandy soil between

Two worlds.

Down by the foams – the wing-span is wide

Dipping between low and high tide.

THE LAST FIRE

THE LAST FIRE

You gathered sticks

to bathe the night with fire,

You, in your element

smiling with watery eyes;

happy sighs - as you bent.

The next day your soul gathered

over your cold body

to be buried under sticks and clay...

THE VALLEY

THE VALLEY

A blow in still from Glasgow

though here  since he was 12.

He was proud of where he lived

in Falcarragh’s valley, not far

from The Station House

where he suffered depression

two years ago.

Hard to believe in a man

with a grin as wide as a rainbow

risng from the mist forming

about the foot of the mountain.

THE EDGE

THE EDGE

You smelled the lake before you saw
The edge – aromas of a time before –
You absorbed the tears of a broken
Mother – while they put wet clay
Over your Father.

Loosing yourself in a haze of puberty,
In that barren land; you got lost in an
Advancing mist, but the ghost of your
Father finds you now, leaning in,
And whispering through the breeze;
“you’re not the first to suffer –
you can face adversity.”

Moved… to another time, another place,

When you made paper boats; with your
Dad’s fragile breath – whispers of wonder –
Setting them free….
You look to the sky and feel, you sense
A different sphere and know…. Your Father
Was in his element when he was with you
And water, on this land.

Although much of him has faded –

You realise this, it fastens you to
The earth – loneliness disappearing;
Drifting away from the edges.