Making Light

WINTER MIGRANTS

These travellers who at dusk fell from the sky to feed
have found only an unsettled rest,
not destination.

Long after midnight we lie listening
as the wild geese
continue crying from the loch below our house.

I am trying to imagine unimaginable distances.
Where does our own journey end?

On the night flight of a planet
that has nowhere to land
I hold you closer to me in the dark.

LUMB MILL

David, one leg of this walk
is for you.
I lend you my best side!
Pretend we stride the river valley
together

touching the topmost branches
of trees whose roots
are far below us in the roaring water.

Tomorrow, home with you,
I’ll describe the steep descent,
discovering the ruined mill. Hands
had dressed the stone
but fern and moss have overcoated,
weatherproofed it.

I almost sensed its presence
before I saw
the stranded tower:
a blackened chimney
rising from the undergrowth
like a tree
but sprouting no leaves of its own.

The men who gave it purpose
are long gone

and the trees have moved in
closer. Gently leaning,
they share their dances of light.

SINGLES

I served my life to you,
over the net
and into your court.

With great kindness
you bounced it back.
Set me free.

No longer nursing you,
I visit the home
and each time leave

alone. Ashamed to have
lost. To be the one
who will win through.

MAKING LIGHT

Sometimes you sing to me from the battlefield.
A nursing home bed
and it’s been years

lying on your back
no visible action.

I listen to you making light:

Spike Milligan songs
or ones of our own devising:
crazy lyrics collapsing
in the percussion of laughter

and maybe an old tune
tenderly.

Hiding me safe behind your heart,
you keep faith.
Standing, strong,
you hold the line.

HOME FOR THE WEEKEND

I know you are alive in the dark.
Returning to bed, I leave the light off
so not to waken you

but the night is a forest
and you are hidden from sight
and my bare feet, treading

the pile of the carpet soft
as grass, pause. Am I
lifting my face for scent

of danger? Am I animal or spirit
or irreconcilably both

when I know I would protect you
with my life and yet tomorrow
I will let you go again?

I have no instinct
for a life without you.

Alone most nights, I am not even with
myself. I am somewhere
in between us, searching.

NIGHT DUTY

“I’ll do David.”
At the tea-trolley,
nearing the end
of a twelve hour shift,
the new nurse chooses you.

She wants that moment at your bedside,
holding the blue striped straw to your mouth.

She cannot help but find herself
reflected,
catching the light,
returning your smile.

She says it’s a wonder.
Yes I know

how you lie
calm
and so essential:
serving

like a channel cut to carry water.

MERRY-GO-MAN

My merry-go-man,
you belong to the wind.
Your soul is your sail.

While you seem to sleep,
moored in a white morning,
you circumnavigate the unknown,

a dangerous voyage,
your hull riding the highs and lows
of the thermometer.

You have returned
and recognised me,
spinnaker singing the unseen

wonders of the world.
I don’t understand a word.
But there’s no need. I know

in your roundabout way,
unfurled and free and unafraid,
you have gone beyond me.

THIS IS MY BODY

Your death was a small round wafer
the colour of the moon

placed in my cupped hands
where it lay for a moment
like a reflection in a still pool

as you and I knelt side by side
at the wooden rail between two worlds.

Before us, in crumpled travelling clothes,
the big-shouldered young carpenter
with his northern no-nonsense follow me
(as if there was work still to do)

was suddenly gentle,
a hand of blessing on my head
even as he took you from me.

TO SPEAK YOUR NAME

To speak your name outloud, alone,
jump starts the pain behind the breastbone:

a sudden acceleration of the heart
like a Cape Canaveral launch
without a countdown.

I remain behind.
I am ground control with no control
inside a reinforced glass dome surrounded by space

watching you on the monitor shrinking
smaller even than a star

watching you reversing faster than the speed of speech
away from the sound
of your name.

I check the photograph of you which isn’t you
saved larger than life on the screen
and listen in my head

to the silence repeating itself over and over and out.