Images
Standing amongst pigeons
all about your head and hands,
Mouth wide in laughter,
Eyes screwed with tears,
I saw you suspended in time;
Only a photograph -
but real to me.
Boxing Day morning,
Surrounded by family
yet separate from us all,
You were watching seagulls through the window
and murmuring how low they were flying.
Time hovered,
Then I came to your shell in its pink lined box.
Only a carcass.
Thin veils of bone dissolving;
You'd flown -
away with the seagulls?
(or is that too romantic)
When I was about ten,
Sparrows would nest in the guttering
above the kitchen door.
Each Spring you'd watch some little ones fall;
tiny phantom things, not yet formed,
flattened on the floor.
You'd turn and be sick and not eat your dinner.
(your dinner was always slightly different to ours,
slightly smaller, colder and you sat to eat just as we
were finishing.
Sometimes I find myself taking the darkest tea,
Choosing the least nice part of the meal I've cooked
so that it's all more perfect for others.
I never cook for myself is an old adage).
The morning after was sunny,
Lying in your bed I listened to crows in the garden,
Fluttering images of people dying,
People being born,
People falling,
In love,
Growing up
and going away,
Turning,
Changing,
A circular scenario revolving.
Then later,
Sitting on a hillside,
Watching the wind blow the grass
into waves all below me,
Swirling, rolling, shifting waves when
Out of the blades you walk,
In your rosy dress,
blowing, waving, alive and laughing,
As I remember you.
I watch as
Into the soil you fade,
The very brief glimmer of you
disperses with air,
Passing through particles.
Life breathes, comes into full view,
Then sighs into another space.
I see the gulls softly gathering now,
In the mists across the field,
I squint to glimpse your form amongst them,
And find you there !
Then turn to look and see you everywhere,
In everything.
Mother,
Earth.
