Carefully Curated

 Objects on a table

Three, grouped

A rabbit skull, a vase, a lamp with a fancy cable.

Carefully curated objects

Placed on a table.

The person who put them there

Is photographed sitting

With ankles crossed, on a Phillip Starck Chair

With their hair ironed flat

And their cuffs turned back

Carefully curated objects

Grouped on a table, posed against the black.

A mouse, posed by the taxidermists hand

Placed under glass

Shiny, tiny black glass bead eyes fixed

Tiny paws clutching a wand

Brown ears squashed by a witches hat

A whimsey

Carefully curated by an artist

Sat on a bench holding a marmalade cat.

A dirty hallway

Letters in a pile, spilling through the flap

An old pair of slippers, worn thin

On the wall a peeling print of a worldly map

Carelessly uncurated

Granddad dead in his armchair

An uncashed giro in his lap.

The Sand Golem

Men quarried the stone

That built the house

That stood on the cliff

That the sea made

The sea washed the stones

That lay in the deep

That washed to the shore

That the tide made

The moon made the tides

That brought in the waves

That tumbled the sand

That the rocks made

I gathered the sand

That lay on the beach

And fashioned a man

That’s what I made

The wind blew the sand

Fashioned into a man

That lay on the beach

That the rocks made

The sea took the man

Fashioned from sand

Back to the deep

That time made.

 

Hours

 Heavy lay the burdens of time and the things we have lost

Ours was the field, first ploughed, left fallow in frost

Under the great oak in golden summers, hayricks and strawdust

Round and round we danced, the Maypole built for us

Sadly, my friend, the day grows dark, and leave we must.

If I Could Touch a Moment

 If I could touch a moment

Hold it, turn it over

It would be now

I’d keep it forever.

I’d put it in a box

The lid on tight

And when I felt the pull

I’d open it

And release

Delight.

The Woman's Circle

 Time, once an old woman left wandering in a desert

Is coming home

Her footsteps sure and steady.

She carries new things gently in her arms

And old things, tied to her back

Grow heavy

But she keeps them there

To be ready.

This is no life

But deliveries must be made

And collections completed before day fades

Things taken away and stored

Ready for the end.

This old woman is both the be-all and end-all.

Often she wanders in the inbetween
Looking for shelter and repose

There are moments she finds restful:

Laughter, or here a sad smile

Or a baby born or a deer mindful

Of a twig snapping in the forest

Or a man, pausing at a stile to scratch his nose.

She forgets nothing as we do

And is not allowed acedia

The banished sin

Although she dreams often of doing nothing.

Sometimes she wanders in circles

Expanding and contracting according to the moon

But she is coming, she is coming

And all too soon.

Hers is the last face I shall see.

Atlas

The smell of earth, freshly dug

Turned over

An autumn field, say,

Or an open grave

Yawning darkly for a coffin

Where once a hand rested on a spade

Now a machine chugs and pulls

Lifting clods like Atlas

Squaring his shoulders to hold a world

Muscles hard as stone

I might bend and crumble the dark loam

Between my fingers

Searching for worms

Dwellers in the dark, cleaners, sorters

My head filled with words like seed potatoes

Ready to be sown underground

Raised up, covered

Raised up again

Until green and nearly flowering

I can reach my hand down

And pull them from the darkness.

The Making of a Witch

She dreamt one day grace would provide a child

With wild charms to fill her empty hands

But each day a sad and hollow tone rang

In empty space where arms held nought but air.

Time would not forgive the long wait but she,

Glad once to hesitate, could not move on

Found prayers meant nothing and before too long

A wind had whipped her saddened soul to madness.

Her friends, no barrier to despair, cared not

Inviting her to view their newborns dressed

In white, baptised at altar, sung for, blessed.

With shame her tears could not drown their gladdened hearts

She gave up her home and wandered barefoot

Amongst the trees and screamed for mercy, raging

On and on, hard against her barren fate

Still, the leaves said nothing, withered and fell

To start again earth’s dark and holy toil.