The egg collector
You cup in your hands
an antique swan’s egg
the size of your palms,
passed from collector to enthusiast,
each owner in awe of delicate beauty.
And guillemot’s eggs like speckled pearls:
you hold each specimen for me to admire
reverent passion in your voice as you tell me
you must see this.
You will go to the wetlands,
lie on damp reeds and grass
or perch on tarp for hours,
binoculars held to your eyes
as if the comings and goings
of wrens, kingfishers, ospreys
were more important than cable news
of presidents, accidents, awards, wars.
You will stare up as the horizon blushes
to observe formations of mallards,
swans, starlings’ murmurations,
light against darkening sky,
carry home another still warm find
as if it were gold or rubies
and all this promised land
your’s for the taking.
Scythe
It is a repressed soul that cries out for poetry
or is assuaged by theatrical laughter
and heart, the sharing of triumph and tragedy,
as if life could be collective, there could be society.
Hindsight or otherness permits us to wonder
at the decisions and misdecisions of one another.
The longings and long endurance of hardships;
the ironies of success, folly and misfortune.
Who wishes to listen to the mutterings of old men
wandering in the overgrown gardens of derelict manorhouses?
Rather, the psychadelic colours of rotting leaves;
the patterns of their dance as the wind whips;
the nesting of starlings under the eaves,
and how they return as if uncles and aunts
on childhood summer Sunday evenings, or like the visits
of parental or conjugual embraces
just before some evolutionary switch is flicked.
The way Falloon’s terrier stopped
chasing passing neighbours, nipping heels,
as if reaching a certain age bestows resignation
or some sudden wisdom burgeoning like sunshine
when clouds finally unblock hidden rays.
Though it is true, at a certain age, hopes are cropped;
refinements are made. Then come bittersweet days:
moments of love and nostalgia,
regret and insomnia,
when any distraction is welcome
and all the effort, distortion, waste, renewal
can be funnelled into a single drop
of tart wine as the latest shower begins to drum.
Chainsawing
Pressure on the trigger
makes the engine roar
and whine, roar, tick over,
while dipping the chain-teeth’s blur
into block makes the saw jerk
and strain. Pressure on the handle
throws sawdust to concrete,
around paint-marbled boots
in the gloom of the barn
beside shadowy columns of straw bales,
slicing through rings, crumbling bark.
As the blade sings, engine roars and whines,
stomach throbs, back and thighs twinge;
chest heaving, breathless,
when the sump is empty
silence returns,
except for thick plastic sacks
rustling as, with clacking logs, they are filled.
This ritual may seem unremarkable to many,
yet I have carried more, on leaving,
than bags of sticks: the duty of my quotidian
is piled in these meek packs,
can rest relieved.
Janitor
It’s the first time I’ve seen her sitting down,
on the visitors’ sofa in the breakout area.
“Someone give me a pull onto my feet,” she moans,
“I’ve another round of the fourth floor.”
The security guard shoves her shoulder.
She trundles her trolley into the elevator,
ascends with me. Keys are cupped in the rubber plunger
dangling like a sword in its scabbard,
a builder’s shovel slotted into truck frame iron.
Joel cringes when she approaches with steaming cloth,
reminds her he’s allergic to detergents.
Her grey flannel hovers across my desk instead.
Clatters as she empties bins by the copier;
squirts as she wipes the coffee point sink.
When I head home, she’s steering a blower
Along the front steps, clearing leaves
like a gardener mowing lawn swards
and, as I sigh for my train, nodding, she nods.
Shovelling
The old man can quarely handle a shovel.
As could his old man, and his, and his,
who scraped a thigh that went gangrenous,
they couldn’t afford the doctor’s guinea,
he died, at sixty-four.
A new fence means a digger cannot reach.
I slice clay at the track’s edge,
between the hill field and dyke
shaded by thorns, some rotting, some budding.
Ivy covers high branches like mittens.
Three digs across, we painstakingly
reverse our way from the march hedge
beneath which the ancient pipe trickles,
knowing it will take nine hours to clear
pungent silt and clay onto the narrow bank.
From time to time, we sit to rest,
him panting, dizzy with his long covid
breathlessness, admire the brightness of grass,
cobalt beauty of clear sky,
just occasional murmurs of distant
traffic and cries of mallards flapping by.
This little world is our day.
From a fallen branch, I plucked a bird’s nest,
move those hail-blanketed eggs
to the safety of a nearby shrub.
I’ll come back in a few weeks’ time, see they’ve hatched.
With each bite into muck, the sheugh drags
the shovel blade under. I tug and it gives way,
a sucking, gurgling plughole.
The water hugs our ankles like a dog.
Eventually, we trudge home across
the meadow, in the last light of day.
So it is, the legends of family and place
are passed on in whispered voices.
Alien Buddha Press 