A Crease in the Sunlight

two poems

A Crease in the Sunlight 

the path has cleared itself

rare, now, to leave our form
in puddle scraps 
or press our soles to mud

- be remembered

memory is nothing here
and yet I am not free 

those wings black as a lock 
turned and turned again 
key the air 

raven, we saw you drinking
like something ordinary 
but you void death
break the air 

the bones are white here
a caterpillar undulates over teeth
fits neatly, bends backward
in the ecstasy of an eye socket 

we are told
in the rags of pine
the old witch lives here 
with her ebony birds 
and bleached bones 

algae 

the ink of sap 
the oil of resin 

logs split open 
still wet within 

we spell cast ourselves further
away, away

past the weedy pool 
up the endless hill, 
its skin, a dried itchy eczema 
snake territory

our breath pushes us onward
like a fist 

(Recommended in the Westival International Poetry Festival and first published in Channel Magazine)

(photo of the forest behind my back garden in the Eiffel Germany)

My Children and I walked in the forest daily this poem was written after a walk with both my daughters through the forest in this photo. 


Map
 
a pattern realised, made manifest
 
true as the ravines and inclines
on aging skin 
 
we walk here, 
the moon our cool torch,
night-read like palmists
 
I’m certain in the creases 
fanning out from your eyes 
grief can’t touch us 
 
here, in this territory
where I pin my soul to your lapel 
 
where I gift wrap shadows
into brightly coloured birds
 
singing mystery 
as if that is all they are 
and all they will be
 
the map of you is how I orient
 
pain embedded in the distant north
 
but joy lashed to the south of you

(first published in Cafe Writers online magazine)

(photo of a map by my last house to help you find your way in the woods)

This poem was written to a prompt several years ago but harks back even further to a walk back from the pub in the summer with my then lover, we had had a very difficult time together but I was also utterly in love and willing to ignore the obvious problems in the face of my infatuation.

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