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A LANDSCAPE
And though now I turn
and walk away -
this region is not known to me -
I cannot help but think
there is something about this landscape:
something about the bulge of hills
and the dark winter woods thrown across them
like bear pelt;
the way the bare telegraph poles
swing out over the high ground;
something about the trees in the tiny copses
standing like family groups in photographs;
the muted lime-green fields
that slide and spill into the valley;
the hump of moorland on the far horizon
bumping against the leaden belly of the low clouds.
And though now I turn
and walk away -
this region is not known to me -
I cannot help but think
there was something about this landscape
that bred within me
a feeling of longing,
a strange sense of homecoming.
AFTER HOPE
intrusive
cold steel
confirms the loss
and the scan
like a probe tracing a planet's surface
finds only cold space
this place has been evacuated
and left as empty as a frosted field
under faint moonlight
we can expect nothing
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HASTY ORISON
You sigh as you shift in fitful sleep
and I slip from the bed, touching back the curtain.
Houses rise like steps
hammered into the hill
which, higher, reclaims the world for darkness
as streetlights are extinguished
and the miles of houses end
so abruptly.
I imagine our neighbours
shifting in restless sleep, like you,
soft hair and fragile craniums
rubbing distractedly against their pillows,
a mother's fingers smoothing over the contours
of her child's skull
soothing him into sleep
as darkness presses against the window panes.
With the dawn
the silence will break
in the slamming of doors.
At the end of this day
somewhere in the city beneath us
a house will remain empty
unexpectedly
heartbreakingly
and there will be no-one to hear the starlings rustling on the eaves
or the radiators clanking into life
like battered old steam engines.
I turn towards you
and pray
cowardly
Shamefully
"let it not be her
not her".
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