boys in the park

they play football & run around & one after the other they come screaming to their mothers. 'he did this.' 'he did that.' 'he said he didn't want to play.' how well we learn to cover up our own small terrible wounds.

found small stone

How are you,
Please reply me
i have important
discussion to
discuss with
urgently.
Janet.


*


(the line breaks were already in place when this landed in my inbox. perfect!) 

black-dot fly draws a curve through the super-fine rain
and as a backdrop, the hills (hiding their face)

my favourite musician of the night was the little-bit-crazy one who'd have been even better if he went a little further into his craziness

big windows. big hill. rabbits make occasional joyous disturbances in the green.

today's garden: shadowed by machine sounds
the air thick with tarmac-stink

pink, yellow, green, blue

lurid re-painted pub
roadside-dandelion-splashes
finch showing a flash of belly mid-swoop
the sky
the sky
the sky

a single dandelion seed floats fluffily past, almost missed

Up on the hill

Breeze riffles the grasses variously, pale yellow seedheads rising above a blush of burgundy underneath. A yellow toy plane swoops, circles and swirls. Walkers cross from left to right, from right to left. The grass cushions me.

found small stones from the children's guestbook at Barbara Hepworth's sculpture garden

Dear Barbara are you a live! Sorry if your not. I think your talented. love Noor

*

Dear Barbara, I wold lik to no how maney sculptures wor made. and I wod like to no wat ther nams are. and I like them too. from Joseph

*

Dear Barbara, my name is Lucy Sutton and I am ten years old. I love art and I express my emotions through drawings. I love pink and blue. I also like adventures fun times. Your sculptures are brilliant by the way. from Lucy

*

Dear Barbara, I lik the plunts and sculptures

empty glass

coca cola reduced

to a trickle of syrup

after our long absence, the cat wants to be near our heads at night, as if he could stop us from going again

in the middle of evening service

my words dry up, another voice fills the void.
sometimes we don't know how much help there is
until we are really in need of it.

a tangle of slug-trails grabs the light & becomes beautiful

blackcurrant pie

deep purple squidgy insides

her mother looks tired. she is trying to negotiate the brand new world: terrifying, safe. her body isn't under her control. milk comes. warmth comes. milk goes. warmth goes. her liquid eyes are learning to focus. terrifying, safe.

resting my hand, my palm brushes my throat. something pulses, as if a small creature was sleeping under my skin.

tang ..... tang ..... tang
Jnanamati walks loops around the farm
tang ..... tang ..... tang
pulling us from our sleep
tang ..... tang ..... tang
with gentle hands

things I love

this old table stained with rings of tea. the stink of lavender. brass Buddha sitting in his improvised shrine. the fuchsia of my notebook. my starred wedding ring. voice-sounds floating from below. birdsong trickling in from above. the hunger.  

we read poems over and over. 

words take root, 

green shoots appear. 

foundations are disturbed.

something will blossom.

lizard

she is bright green, big, beautiful. she runs between the stones like a drip down a glass.

after the silent week and fetid water bubbling up
absence-of-feeling covers me like a shroud

summer continues: yellow courgettes become alarming in their pregnancies

after the long silence we use words again over orangina. we are saying more, and less. the man at the next table is drinking cheap white wine, his knees buckle as he tries to climb the step. back at the house, the white cat is still calling out her need.

old spider's web: repository for seed husks, leaf skeletons, dust

the morning of our fourth day of silence

from inside the dharma hall, far away, I recognise my husband's cough and smile.

my body says to me: you haven't been in your body. come home.

tric tric tric
David snips fingers of lavender from the bush
accompanied by a bounteous bloom of scent

this morning everything - the flies on the lemons and oranges in the wooden bowl, the cooked-on grime on the old cooking pot, the baked earth, even this pestering wasp - is beautiful

a text message puts a crack through everything, and old pain rises up like a wellspring

A house to clean. I'll start with this mug here; splashed with orange blooms, its white interior stained like teeth.

watching the mouth of the river...