to get her toes in tangles in its jelly-soft

arms . If not for the stove, warm with warming

muffined pans, stewing pots, treacled puddings,

she’d  be there, among the periwinkles ,

starfished sands.

Yet she sings of the future.

She sings for she sees

her children wading in the

wildness of the ocean ,

hears their laughter shimmering

in the wind,

feels the surging waves rise

and fall within them.

So she

minds the fires and keeps the windows

open.

She sings.

MOTHERSONG

A leaf trickled down

onto the dew

on white, steel mornings

as if to say

“You thought I would not last the night,

the frost bears its might upon my body:

it will choke my stillborn song.”

Heavy it lay upon your back

bearing upon your tender frame

the deadness of aborted rain

that had given itself up to

beatification- crystal tomb.

But its scorching scalpel could

neither shred your shimmering skin

nor stop the rivers woven within

from the time of the first star.

For you recalled the morning

and did not succumb.

Cradling the sun in your arms

you would not, in your stillness,

be held down.

Waiting,

thinking of these icy shadows that

would pass, and you, once more

would walk those paths

greened and warmed ,

uninhibited ,

in flights of light and shade.

“I’d like to think on Easter Day,
you’d be spending a whole weeks’ pay
on drinks for the boys and jokes
for the gals.

Leaning on elbows
with leaves in your sleeves
you’d talk of

daffodils, yellow
and full,
bursting -dancing on that
self-same hill,
where the gentle poet walked
and waited until,

the day had passed and the
sparrows still-

and make us long
for home.

I’d like to think on Easter day,
you’d be with us,
steeped in earth and mud
and blood ;
not velcroed in cloisters
of polished steel.

Clay
cup
holding
You.
Thank you
thank you
for not being
syrup contained in
tinkling glass cupcakes.

Happy Easter Daysies.”

cradled safe by dark deserts where a bush
casts coiled shadows of thorns
burning like manna on
wet gethsemane.

weeping quails soaked
in fresh blood; prints of peace
splashing the midnight blue hills
scarlet white.

flapping Flesh, flayed food for
barren seekers finding
Peace.