Blackthorn

poems with a wintery feel

(drawing of a Blackthorn by my youngest daughter)

Blackthorn

Both my outstretched hands beseech, 
cupped in the homely image of a nest.

Reach into the blackthorn, that 
remembers the blackbird 
and her clawed feet, the first flight 
of her little ones, beyond the 
safety of umber needles. 

My little one reminds gnarled blackthorn
of her young stars opening their bright faces 
in stark winter wind. She has nothing 
but her tined memories for company. 

I feel her pin prick reminiscing.
My hands cradle the history of the blackbird
that brown mother-bird gave her spit for this! 
Wove a cautious Moses basket,
wet the earth to sculpt it for her children.
See her careful beak in every thorn.

My daughter touches the moss
her fingers, slight blue eggs.
I would plant blackthorn around her
as if she were a hatchling bird,
soft bed hidden in thorns, until 
she breaks for the sky and fledges.


(first published in 3 Drops from a Cauldron midwinter 2018 edition)

(From the Illustrated Book of Animal Life - my favourite wildlife book when I was a child)

Fire in the Mist

 

heavenward leaches its gold,

pale, paler still

it falls as courage, tense as a seed is

 

survive this shuck into cold light

there will be blossom again

 

see how your fist opens when I reach for you?

 

like that

 

see how the knuckles turn from white to rosy pink?

 

the fires burn cooler now, imagine the pine

its scent, its tar

how it ignites

even sick, the oil of the pine is bitumen

even in the rain and the long unclear mist

it burns

(first published in Cafe Writers)

A photo I took of a pine trunk fire in my garden.

 

Snow
 
Of frozen shores;
Cold vacuity, I breathe an arctic breath,
offer colour from my cheeks.
 
The stems of my arteries
make icicles.
 
Of the knots in my fingers;
Tied tight in their heat
over one another, tangled flames
clumsy with apology.

I have been foolish.
 
Holding you;
legs wrapped around
the drift of your hip.

Now;
Our moon spills an acrid light
it pools on my belly
melted snow.

(first published in cafe writers)

(snow at the back of our house)

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