Horses in December

It is raining
                perhaps I am meant to be sad,
it reminds me of December evenings
                of four feet walking down a deserted street,
of two hands clasped together
                as one,
the sound of my riding boots
treading from pavement
                to mud                                  the yard
                of steaming breath of horses,
my neck aching urging you to look up
                at the stars
and of our daughter nestled under my sternum.
 
                The smell of hay and street lights
smudged through a veil of winters long night,
                five lives depending on us
to secure and wrap them warmly beneath blankets,
                you could not see six
she was invisible to you.
 
Christmas Eve and you left to drink
returning late with swine
                carved seven ways to Sunday
promising payment to the daughter of his Lordship,
but you forgot to defrost it
                and we ate lamb on the day of birth
of our Lord                          I hate lamb and there was no
mint sauce to sweeten the taste of failure.
 
We walked for hours across furrowed fields
                dogs chasing pheasants
as you barked orders for them to disperse despite
their natural nature of being,
                it made me sad and I felt confided to my swelling
your excited disappointment of secrets
nestled under your clavicle.
 
Too soon came January
                did you remember my birthday
not that it mattered by then,
the moon had passed under a wake of water
                slaughtered by her own plunging
into pools of finality                        of baptism.
 
We are adrift
                sinking as stones
twenty nine or forty depending on the year of birth,
she has just one              
                should we forsake her so,
strike it off as another mistake laden guilt
with which to beat ourselves....
 
...or embrace under the full moon that stares
willing me for                     or against,
I have drawn the curtain in my room
                against a bed unused but for sleep,
so should we creep back to ourselves
remembering the smell of straw and love
coo our names and hers,
                we may do                          so simply this time
as us                      but it must be honestly,
or all that I remember
is a lie                    let this not be so.


Silver Birch & Willow

Why should I hamper
fourteen reasons lingering not to,
seventeen or eighteen answers call upwards
spiral out of my hands-
fall between gaps
grooves I have carved with
fingertips and voices,
hearing is no better than seeing-
the velveteen rabbit waits
listening for my voice
calling him to being.
 
I have laid out a place
for him
under covers should he feel
chills of an encroaching
autumn,
shattered dreams haven't seen
much sleep,
they are visions dancing
under half closed lids.
 
I have never been
prouder than this             to call my vision
my own                                under doctrine
dreaming fast    too slowly
for your comprehension
invention of fantasy or hope,
you speak of worlds
never those of my own,
home is a memory I care not to recall.
 
Never are there women that chant
incantations of femininity,
my net it cast wide to the sun
ruled by the moon
swooning slowly to her umber,
I hold two functioning
                tubes or crevasses of fertility-
you chose to ignore words
spoken from lips-
hips        womb divine.
 
Find me under ashes of the willow tree
free       naked                   stripped
as if beech or     silver birch,
weeping before rivers that do not exist
except as floods seeping to our front door,
fortune has left nothing
but for the echoing of voice
from Newlands Corner
where my Mother stands...
 
She knows now her name
                hears him calling
and sees the  men and man
                for whom she will give herself
now
                openly.