The land was a lonely letter

The land was a lonely letter
Arrived full of secret words
At my five bar gate
But sealed by heather
And signed by Great Grandmother
In a hand of ferns and furrows
Secret as blank paper
I stand beneath a horizontal branch
Its leaves stained brown, but fresh with buds
They cover the ground
As whispered words
That Grandmother once spoke aloud
Written, not on twice folded paper
But in roots, rung as hands
Crossed over frost sheared bluffs
And the ceaseless torrent burn
That always changes,
And always stays the same
I turn the envelope in my hands
The saplings, alive with soul and berries
Reach under my boots
Their whispered words knock at my door
A letter of time falls to my step
It bears my Grandmother’s hand -
I never knew her
But I’m not lonely like her letter
Of rocks and moss and trees and leaves
That are written all around.

The Other Room

And here was the table
Laid with a casket
Knees full of woodworm
Eyes to the floorboards
Each carved hand, neighbour tight
And doused in lace and oil of camphor
Beetles ticking time to the holy clock
Two am despite its salted rusted spring
With a rough bog cotton bag over it
To stop it sounding in the dawn
Like a dainty cock

And the paint cracked ceiling
Bent with footsteps
Dislodged its mist of sullen must
Spore speckled greying seconds settled
On black armbands and hatless furrows
Icing for the peat smelling burner
The wreaths of reeds and satin black posies
On each cold tea and untouched whisky
So still was this widowed night
A psalm uttered in silver dust

And there was our father
Blind in the box room
Reached for his baby
Finds nothing but bibles
And bags of pink china
And unmended curtains
And dank string-tied bundles
Of grandmother’s letters
And then, under those
The calf skinned leger
Bairn fat and ripe with sailors
Unlocked and fell open like a worn mattress
At last year’s wedding, the autumn’s yield
And finally, the ink finding its empty field
A space for our present harvest -

The time, the day
What happened and why, and the name -
Written in his lamp black best.

Lift - young rain, heavy, wet

Lift - young rain, heavy, wet
To where the sky is wan and thin
And Blow -

Insist with shallow arctic breath
Each drop, six times spun
To flat platters and crystal wheels
They catch the air that cushions round
In zephyred sprays of feather-leaves
And scattered windblown shards
That melt upon my outstretched tongue.

Just

Arting hermitwise in the Snoozy-time wildlands
Making it happen, where it might
In dusky philosophicals
There’s musics in the misted winds and window rains
Grated fires and overstrung piano and new season birdsongs.

There’s listenings around in peat hot gatherings
Poeticals sometimes, in pollen-misty footsteps
It’s a lifetime just improvising with friends
And radical counsel in monastic refuge

Up the lookout tower, by the reflection pools
Designings, drawings, assemblings, projects
Stones, limpets, burnt sticks, salted bones,
Collections, archives, note taking,
Scrunched up papers

Just painting the paintings
Photographing mysterious objects
Walking the old paths
Saying the old names
Finding the beautiful circles
Orcharding in the hermitry

Living an existence
Praying for something.