ASHES TO ASHES

I‘m burning apple boughs at evensong.

While still shrill blackbirds linger, the path’s flagstones -

by turns - become first chapter and then verse.

My bonfire keeps the day’s half-light alive;

the sweet twigs placed so they’re not blown off course.

Its glowing core is kiln of afterthought.

In the smoke, a ritual of remembering:

how, once a year, we went with chastened hearts

and smudged foreheads, smouldering to school.

The mark of otherness unrecognised,

until – in the nearest glass – we washed it

from our skin, to sidestep explanation.

When flames die down, the bark cast off rekindles

what has lapsed. I hear a sizzle of held sap

and watch the embers slowly choke on ash.

x. 2018

 

Twelve Rivers - Autumn 2023 

TESTING THE WATER

remembering Scott Hutchison

A flow we seek to capture,

bridge or channel, yet cannot confine.

Lithe as mercury, slipping fingers,

it is held in brush-stroked cloud

and then let fall, rattling on rooftops.

Pools, unstirred, collect

the tension of drip, drip droplets:

mirror-flat, refract our point of view,

reveal all kinds of surface.

 

Of running water, folklore says

that no enchantment can survive it.

To know the end you go to, be the stream,

not a stick that’s spun at source.

Ride the impulsive rapids to middle-age

meandering, no cataracts in sight.

At the delta of days, silt-laden

reach the surf; then fathomless beyond

swim until you see no land.

 

x - xii.2018

 

Dreich, Season 7 

PENSION PLANNING: a thumbnail overview

Are you sitting comfortably?

Then let’s begin.

Start with that problem-solving seminar: skip it.

Be absent from your performance appraisal.

Stay home on Away Days.

Decommission those best practice bullet points.

Make yourself available,

24/7, to yourself.

It is time, time to begin.

To begin to walk away.

Away from the fantasy that you could be someone,

other than who you’ve become.

It is time, time to break out.

To slip the reach of bureaucracy’s dead hand.

To reject the happy-worker hypothesis.

To wander from the wavelength of received wisdom.

It is time, time to return.

To return to rhythm of your own pulse.

Until work falls out of sight at last

below the horizon.

Give up  the mediocrity of cardigans: go on.

Keep that flat-pack furniture flat packed.

Convert the loft back to attic.

Abandon four wheels, find your feet.

Dig up the block-paved drive,

un-deck the patio, grow your own.

All these quality enhancements

benefit from our expert horizon scanning

and the latest in joined-up thinking.

You will see their financial reconciliation

embedded in your maintenance portfolio.

Sign here please.

 vi.2015 / x.2018

HOLDING THE FORT

White feet climb from the bay,

taking a tourist trail to explore this outpost.

In well-groomed lawn the officers’ quarters

stand, restored to Georgian elegance.

Memory is a plaque:

On this spot the mutiny of the 8th

West India Regiment broke out.

Under a mango’s shade, there’s more to learn.

***

Cane bills  were the trigger.

A broad iron blade, with hooked tip heavy

on long handle, to strip and lift the stems.

Familiar enough – like erratic food

and clothing –  yet unforeseen,

as the swindling of due allowances had been.

Cane bills. Plantation’s badge:

handed out, like shame, for clearing swamp of bush.

Did the Colonial Office weigh up the risk

of putting arms in reach,

as manpower short, they bought a regiment?

For Redcoats fell to more than yellow jack.

Where they hanged the rebels, history doesn’t say.

We imagine them dangling 

from Fort Shirley’s ramparts, overlooking

black sands and blue, contested Caribbean.

***

Black hands built these dark walls:

carried the cut boulders, hauled cannon

to the heart of a volcano, long dead.

The garrison track heads inland, stumbles

on empty magazines, barracks half-swallowed

by forest. Windows choked with Strangler Fig.

Imperial footing undermined

by spreading Bloodwood root.

 

 v. 2018