At Dreams End
Best to bottle then?
Nicer not to thrust and hustle?
Count cherries in the yard
chink a little
trace my life line
with a smooth finger tip?
No more boom cha
rika rika
dim dim dim whoosh
No more lashing, beating, fending,
roaring, bombing out,
seething, slashing, burning?
Just the gnawing tinnitus of a discarded dream.
Sister
I had a sister once,
she was a river
babbling whilst I slept,
athletic to my slower gait.
We passed the hours
side by side,
I, a breakwater
for her bubbling enthusiasm.
Maybe a cloud eclipsed
our ebullience?
Our shared water ebbed,
flow interrupted
by foolish underwater rivulets.
We could have navigated
the ocean together,
but time stole my sister
or perhaps the tide,
and on she flowed
leaving me
floundering,
with sea mist in my eyes.
The Birth
Nine o’clock clammy night
black as welsh cattle.
Came to us talking of imminent birth
Out there, he said. Were we up to it?
Yes, he would be along later,
– after Match of the Day.
Moon rising, we met his lassitude
with a casual ‘maybe’,
but quick mac’d and booted,
torches flashing on the cow-licked field.
Hello, giant moon-blessed shadow.
We stopped; the cow stood, bearing down,
breath hard and harsh,
she minded by sympathetic aunty.
Shush, then, Charlie black cat,
mischievous annoyance
grass-dancing around her
black belted body.
Eleven O’Clock. When?
Inexperienced midwives, we,
watchful and distant, waiting.
Then came striding,
wielding giant forceps, he,
confidently night-wards.
One o’clock: Mucoused arms
deep in steaming buckets.
In our stinking, straining
eye bulging exhaustion,
we came of age
as the calf slipped from her, to be
tongue-tickled in warm, damp grass,
aunty traipsing off to herald the new arrival.
He, tired, emotional, nodded thanks,
and we, looking back, reluctantly retiring,
whooping, giving high-fives and mooing.
Moving On – by Julia Dean-Richards
The cupboards of yesterday are clearing out
to make space for new life.
The placing of a photograph
supersedes the main event.
Cells dividing and dying
are without crying, just letting go.
The reading of a book
is superseding its writing.
Nature is neither denying, or hoarding.
The constant blight of warring and fighting
is simply earth realigning.
