a garden golden-brown
where apples pull branches low
to paint grass with wasps

blackberries darken against vivid green
earth turns under my searching spade
worms slide deep against coming frost

pears hang against my hand
ripe soft with scents
that wait for taste

as I reach for icicles
from the eaves

while rosehips hang
frosted with snow

solstice bread
rises in the grate

I open curtains
for my lost love

red and white peppermint
twirled to a length
that could be licked
or broken in pieces

my brother wanted a stick
brought from Margate
with its beach of castles
donkey rides and buckets
blankets on sand
and long slow waves

the colours smell
of seaweed saltwater
linger in memory
overlaid by the taste
of Edinburgh rock

deep waves rise and fall
as they breathe

they hear winds lift
spume from salt

know the cry of terns
lifting the horizon

and yet and yet
they walk the shore

pick sea shells
run rope through hands

yearn for tiller
and rise of tide

whose violin haunts
these rounded hills
with a thread of sound?

which spins through aspen
lays grief in sloughs
weaves through bent grass
to enter my cabin
like a violent sunrise

my words are unravelled by wind
shaken into sentences by a bluster of firs
and I find myself hyphenated
in a landscape never seen before

here commas are more than rivers
colons rise in fountained geysers
while I paragraph between sand-dunes
run from one period to the next semi-
the next semi-    who or what?

rain sprays the land with brackets
until I am italicized past retrieval
and must return to the first word
I spilled into the wind

she catches the moment of herbs
moon-high or tide-low

picks their fragrancies
leaves them drying in the dark

before they can blossom
into streams of sunlit dust
 
their patterns of wait
droop    wither   crumble

retaining through dormancy
echoes of last year’s flower

Passion Contents

blue sky folds into grey shadow
while neon signs brightly glitter
a singer’s voice fades to low
blue sky folds into grey shadow
the diners get ready to go
and the air becomes acrid, bitter
blue sky folds into grey shadow
while neon signs brightly glitter

Wild Transitions Contents