At dawn
torn blossoms litter our bed:
storm damage.
The Art of Prose and Poetry
At dawn
torn blossoms litter our bed:
storm damage.
On Sunday,
before Mum’s cancer was confirmed
winter yawned a warm shiver
and wee white buds
—still with a boreal bite—
popped from dark-bark spindles,
yet to leaf,
phosphorescent against blue-black hues
like earth stars discarded from the sky.
I nipped outside and snipped the
baby branches from the main trunk,
rehoming them indoors, redressing
the air with decaying base notes,
topped with a sweet spring clean,
fusing seasons
that Mum inhaled as she snoozed,
embracing Sunday
and later awakening
with death-breath
expelling Blackthorn from the house,
screaming in the mother tongue
severed at the root
twenty-two years mute.
What would you wish for
as you blew out twelve candles
my unborn seedling.
Below rugged earth by Fairy Hill,
my roots are entangled in bones
relieved of soft flesh
that once glowed red upon cheeks
ripened by an autumn heart
beating slightly out of time.
And now, with every visit,
decades of fallen leaves
are trampled down in rusted hues.
Twilight blinks
upon the road
a lifeless deer
Pearl balled in mirrored eye.
At dawn
nothing stirs but blossoms
caught a-whirl in wind.
Inky fabric
prickled with light
a maze of stars.
Stars fall over Drumochter pass,
smudged grey as always, barren, desolate,
a world dropped dead into Dante’s Ninth.
By the old railway, I cradle your urn,
twisting the lid, scattering ashes
that return on wet wind, blinding me.
As your dust speckles the yawning hills,
my soul blinks behind gritted lids.
Inside me
he grew delicate roots
brittle as glass.
Sparkling star-like
on roses, dewdrops
ignited by sunrise.