The past tapped me on the shoulder
and I turned. Nothing. Well, a scent.
Not even the sound of running feet
or nostalgia’s gentle humming.
Yet a sadness washed over me
that the past was lost and absence
was its legacy. The future
too in its way, either timed out
or boxed safely in denial.
The shoulder was tapped and I turned
hoping to find that ingenue
thrilled to walk in history’s steps.
Even before he opened the cell door,
before wakeful dread had released its hold
over his innocent foolishness, he heard
the sound of lilacs gathered in the Spring.
Was this a moment when fellowship’s glint
shone in the eyes of the unloved, reaching
from Winter doorways in frost covered rags
to the chink of cocktails on the chaise longue?
Or did the men mock, triumphant to see
un-heeding wealth brought low to share the shame;
bitter where no seasons brought their blossoms
and where love was a threat to survival?
Worse did he hear in that soft melody
a murderous threat from men who could live
only with hatred burning in scorched hearts?
He shuddered and stepped on to the landing.
Like the earth, soiled, stamped down by experience,
worn away to skeletal fibres
where cloth and bone mark time on their seams,
the coat holds him through his future until
the release of dissolution to dust.
His daughters’ gentle mockery gave him
a stillness, an assertion, defiance;
the coat was a spit in the eye of Time’s
heedless stare. Its frayed cuffs and shabbiness
bore the burden of the world’s hopelessness;
his despair sweated into its lining
and he buttoned his unreasonable hope
where none could see and would not wish to go.
There his spirit shone in secret, holding hands
with his ineffable suffering Saviour.
I lie, mind-muffled,
bathed in perspiration,
confined, as they say, to my room.
Confined to restless
half-wakefulness.
All round me, windows
open up into escape routes.
Hebridean seas fall
on white sands and black rock.
Steps rise to El Calvari
in the Majorcan heat.
The gentle sufficiency
of Galloway holds its lakes
and hills, bird rich.
Barren shales fall into
Wast Water’s wild darkness.
The black soapstone statue
takes me on my daughter’s
African journey,
whilst my other stands
prayerful in a cathedral pool.
And there, in the corner,
waiting with its hidden music
is my cello, drawing me into memory.
For the moment,
people are too much
to bear and I spin
into shapes and songs.
As the sun glares coldly
at the town, white around the gills
like an ageing dog,
the waves swish down the road.
The long night’s gathered
energy crashes on to the streets
only to stop, beached, steaming.
In the unsparing clarity
of the blue’s sharp light
eyes narrow to slits and the hardness
of brick and stone pierce the advancing tide;
killers come out of their sandy beds,
claws sharpened, shells hardened.
Shivering, I listen and watch,
but head for the trees,
the squirrel’s rustle and the furtive
twitch of the brambles, where I hide
my wounds in the dappled light.
Remember the call of the dark
beyond the frozen moment
Remember the sound of desire’s tread
muffled in the snowscape
Remember the warm light of friendship
crushed by the wildness
Remember the brush of velvet
frosted to abrasive dust
The night calls out the secret spectres, bloodless, alluring.
The tree spreads its arms to hold the killing memories at bay.
I’ve long prepared myself for this,
Through the mawkish tears
Of a child’s bedtime abandonment,
To the ruthlessness of adolescence.
And now the price must be paid
With you gone, all absorbed
Into some unknown soil.
Now whilst I can see the richness
Of grief in your silence,
I must skate lightly
Over my self-made glassy film.
Your stocky presence firmly set
On the ground has dissolved
To some cocktail of my own making.
The cadences of your voice
Are my fabrications from memory.
Past my childhood
The truth is we shared little
That I could see beyond
The reflection of you
Caught in my daughters’ eyes.
