Bone House  

 

Peel back the ground, delve into rich horizons,

the turf a wiry pelt between your fingers.

 

Underneath, the tree roots' muscle, smooth skulls

of stone where eyes of soil lie hidden in the hollows.

 

Dig deeper down; learn that a man once carved

a ladle from a fallen oak, forged an arrow carefully

 

in the flames, or shouldered forests on his back

to form these splintered timbers into home.

 

Below these contoured meadows is a midden;

a shamble of rubble and forgotten time,

 

where delicate gills of flesh petal back

into the living body of the earth

 

and whitening bones of vole and rabbit

shine like scattered stars among the thistle.

 

In the field, a kindle of hares, dancing

in tangles of sedge and heather.

 

A murmur of lacewing in brittle reeds,

the skim of wind on water, ruffling the surface

 

with its sudden gust. And here, too, the scars

of buried weather, marks of old flood etched

 

on scarp or heath, our memory hefted

by the river's surge as we are winnowed

 

from our place, drawn to the litany of landscape

and the long slow dissipate of years.

 

 

Shepherding

 

Last night the angels gathered on the hill,

leaning into the wind like angled pines.

My father tried to herd them, as he would

the wayward ewes, delved their tongues for magic

as he sheared their fleecy wings. As he moved

further from the light, the fading day passed

through them, their voices sweet as mead.

Air cracked like hazelnuts between their fingers.

The sky had ceased to breathe.

 

 

Reading the Leaves

 

She was the local gossip; a twattle-basket across

the garden fence. Curtain-twitcher, petulant,

 

fierce as a sigewif, the cockles of her heart

were hard shelled mussels, impossible to crack.

 

Everyone knew she had second sight,

could read a dream, predict a sudden passing.

 

Sunday tea each week at five. Crockery rocking

on the table, crumbs and judgements flying

 

from her mouth like angry bees as she piled

our plates with cake, buttercream sweet as caudle.

 

In those days our fortune rested, not on tombola

or Spot the Ball, but on the alphabet of leaves

 

in an upturned cup; the drawn pot warm,

full-bellied, with its cargo of oracles.

 

In her delicate slipware, a prosperous life,

unexpected windfalls, the shape of a future

 

husband silhouetted faintly in the dregs.

For others, disappointment. The cat that told

 

of treachery, a candle for worry or ill health,

a broken dish for loss. As my grandmother,

 

soothsayer, warrior queen, measured out

retribution in a teaspoon of sugary lies.