2020.9 Good Friday

Well, this sucks.
Okay, this late I would still be up,
But, instead of wrestling
With glitchy digital imagery,
I should be pressing my best suit,
Polishing my boots,
Mapping out the route,
And thinking about writing something
That sings,
Something to scribble in the card
I’d have actually bought for you:
Suitably cinematic,
Something classic,
Ecclesiastically neutral enough
For every element of our
Intricately mixed family.

It’s a pity.
Instead, I am staring at something
Egregiously metatextual,
Feeling a little sick,
Knowing that, instead of
Getting your speech ready,
Checking everything is spruce,
You are at home after
Another day on the front line,
Wired-up, visor down,
Smiling.
Always smiling.

This is irksome.
I was looking forward to meeting her,
Discreetly wiping tears
At your vows,
Prepped to be wowed
At your joint elegance.
And, let’s be honest,
I was looking forward to the dancing,
Chancing my arm that
My dad
And your dad
Would be spectacularly,
Magnificently
Terpsichorean,
Giving the lie, as always
To the term “dad dancing”,
Even this far into retirement.

It’s a shame.
I’m at that age where
Weddings are few and far between
A staple of my mid-twenties,
Stretching to civil ceremonies,
Later weddings for friends who’d
Waited for equality
Properly locked tight,
My eyes welling in pride.
I spent many years singing
At strangers’ ceremonies,
Laying bets on the obvious choices
And secretly hip-deep in love
With every gaudy minute.
I was giddy with anticipation:
How would your aesthetics,
Endless kindness,
And sly, bold humour
Shine through?

It’s vexing.
I was expecting to
Spend many hours
With my little sister,
Blistering the air with our laughter,
Parting with loving reluctance,
Savouring the touch of hands
That would carry us through
Another season of distance.
There would have been so many hugs,
And dear stars above,
But I thirst with every element
For the gentle blessing of physical embrace.
While you, braced for the next
Emergence, and the next,
Patiently wait on patients,
And the reopening of gates,
Laying safety on the line
Every. Bloody. Day.
And this self-indulgent screed
Is my only way to say:
Thank you.
And I miss you.
And how the actual poem
I write for your actual wedding
Is going to be much better
For the wait.

Stay safe.

Fay x

Image from Boho Weddings (yes, really); photographer Marianne Chua. It honestly looked like a lush wedding!

2018.16 Pilgrimage

It is maybe the third time,
Limned in sticky sunlight,
Wild with sleep deprivation,
And wrapped in last night’s stop-out clothes,
I stride to the place,
Still unmarked save in memory.

You hated this time of year.
I wonder if that’s why you checked out then;
I find it hard to credit any of this
As under your control.
I find it hard to see you here;
I have no memories of it but this.

We’re supposed to congregate,
Take our time to murmur to you,
Deep in earth and sunlight.
I’m remembering the time
I staggered to your bedside dressed like this
And you whispered, mischievous:
“Are those leather trousers?!”

Yes, they are. I am Saturday night dance-sweat sticky,
Sick with longing a year on,
Humbled by Sunday’s brightness.
I hope you don’t mind:
I brought no flowers,
Just this overwrought body and half a brain.

The earth is dry and sickly
I sympathise, braced and baking in heathen pigskin,
Whispering, miserable: I miss you
Wishing I could sing you to sleep again.
My brother stomps here most weeks,
Mine will be a different type of guilt.

I will seek you elsewhere:
Seeing you in tulips, these unruly tresses;
Hearing you in the way my voice curls Hibernian, Caledonian;
Feeling you in sea breezes, freezing and freeing;
Tasting you in bolognese, scenting you in heather.
I know you in these bones you gave me.

It’s taken me 6482 days to write this poem;
I had a lot of things to learn without you,
And yet every step was braced,
Threaded through with your essence.
I still sing, still dance, your legacy
More than conscientious memory.

June Roberts: February 1946 - July 1999 

2015.5 - Gifts of Groaning

You are a taste in the throat,
A shape in the hands
Born of the ways
I waited for you,
Pulled through my palms
Like a star rope,
Sticky with expectations.

I cleave to, heave-ho
The mainbrace of our sailing weather
Uncertain if we're better together,
Shipwrecked,
Or a crystal split,
Calling us history, clever wrecks,
Wracked now by waves.

My mind now is heightened,
And I will call all the ways we spoke
Brave, or knavery,
Depending on the direction
Of the next fourteen seconds,
Because I don't want to be
A port in a storm,
Formed for idleness,
Repairs, and slow regrets.

_____________

Written as pretty much a atreawm of consciousness after reading Poppy's latest poem, so I've no idea what flavours she brewed there… Thanks, Poppy!

#16 Her Father's Hands

She remembers them, sometimes,
Unbidden.
Broad and sure,
Dry as wit
Or a northern wall,
Thinks of how that works -
No cement, just the absolute
precision of placement,
the weight of years
Of doing it right.

Balance is everything.
Nothing in nature will topple
Such certainty
But accident
And the acts of vandals
Impossible to tell,
in the morning,
Which is which.

She remembers strength
And gentleness
Patience with her tracing
The crowded map of lines
And their speed
When called to action.

Those hands have
Mended and healed
Bruised and bled
On both sides.
The heartline is heavy
The head strong,
Decisiveness made flesh.

When all else is faded,
She will know his voice,
Those hands,
The histories they hold,
As well as she does her own;
Wonders, sometimes,
How close the copies grow.

#29 Wonderful Signs

I'm currently studying BSL. This is another true story (coz it turns out there's only so far mythology, seasons, and number associations can take me when it comes to poetry! :D).

She spins words out of
Thin air - spare, yet
Layered, and rich with
The craft of years.
Each sentence an efficient
Dance, each reprimand
Precise - a mallet tap
To guide the hapless.

Time maps out between
Her palms as she releases
Double-helix secrets
From her flesh,
Pressing memory
From liminal
To visible.

Somehow, last week,
We asked the magic
Question after months
Of feckless repetition and then
New dimensions trembled open,
Lotus-like, as petals
Bloomed from spikes,
Rare smiles scattered,
Drifted into place.

And we apprentices
Kept pace -
This new softness
All a portrait of
Her daughter and her
Clever ways who makes
Waves and wishes
With her mother,
And thunder with her
Distant father.

Our teacher's eyes glow,
Holding up this picture
Of her child - the one
Who knows so many worlds,
Whirling sure-foot,
Balancing on sleighted hands
And landing,
Wrapped in love
From every side.

Heart open wide,
Her mother smiles
And we nod, silent,
Thankful for this glimpse,
This trust, this touch,
This brimming image
Of what unguarded happiness
A parent's love can bring.