The keeping of your heart
The keeping of your heart
- Bluebells
I came to the Esk when the valley woke
stretching stiff fingers
new green unfolding in the cold
the cliff a reddish haze of buds.
I followed the small, swift river
to the slope above the gorge
where bluebells grow. Too early,
just buds, swollen at the base of the leaves.
Wind tossed light among the green blades.
Small birds called over a wave
of imminent blue.
I would wake you with this spring.
I would wake you like a bird,
calling over fields of blue.
- The magpie, balancing
the magpie, balancing
high in a hoop-pine,
surveying the morning
carries his dead lightly
in wing and bone
upturned dinghies rain-slicked,
the island hills painted out with cloud
but how shall we carry you,
now that you have gone where
cameras cannot hold you,
telephones cannot find your voice?
gulls and oyster-catchers pace the beach,
the slick edge light-painted
another morning opens
on a day that you cannot count
we will bring
for currency, shells in our pockets
for password, the tui’s husky music
how shall we carry you?
bare feet stepping onto the sand –
a thin moon cradling the dark
and a magpie balancing
- The ginger fox
a ginger fox looked back at me
for a long moment
then loped away up the track
and I have a part
in the keeping of your heart
there was snow on the wind
yet the sun glittered
and this is part
of the keeping of your heart
the trees broke into leaves soft as petals
and the bluebells waited in their pale buds
ah, blown galaxy of leaves!
I will gather them all
for the keeping of your heart
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