tidal

it has a rhythm and pattern all its own
grief

hidden and unpredictable
it catches offbalance
shifts pebbles underfoot
transforms the landscape

it ebbs and flows
grief
set not by the moon but in its own secret particular irregularity

it waves and washes
grief
crashing and seeping
changing everything

and withdraws
leaving shine,
patterns,
and sometimes treasures
carefully cast up on the wet shifting shingle

sussex walk

shocking yellow shine clamours behind the treeline
beyond our cool damp tunnel between fields

its only prosaic dusty bramble and elder
transformed by buttery hot sunshine
loud, lime and glowing beyond this compost corridor
this lengthening world of mulch and hush


shadowed and silent
sole interruptions insistent repetitive bird demands
conducting untranslated business above beyond the stretching reach of root and hedgerow


sudden panic of unseen pheasant


the grey-green whiskery silver softness of wheats subverted too by yellowapplegreen shafts
sharp sun giving edge to blade and ear
the secret spider's web another precarious world transfixed by light


on a secretly discovered pond
one downy duckling scurries out of sight
posturing unicyclist jetski-propelled
zipping skimming like the not-quite-settling light
hovering untouching
over the water's placid solidity



swathes of disco-ball dappling
sweep
seep
scattering through the shade
puddling like rain in discs and drops of light
shimmer in the dim dankness



sifting the leaves
shifting the shadows

bluebells

spring's painful loveliness splinters

the dry

sticky dark

softly insinuates betwixt the cracks of winter

charming its forceful gentleness into the heart of things

audacious

unstoppable

predictable and quiet

wiggles and stretches uncurling inchoate

half born

brashly and tentative

slowly rushing and stamps its way breath held

or is it my breath?

held

laid

resting.

brave

fool-hardy

exquisitely frangibly tough

the bluebells break my heart

standing

if i look back
regret still waits there

with its dark yowling hungry mouth


abysmal gorgon stone transfixing paralysing saltbound breath


the past is ruined now
ravaged by understanding


the light of all those painful conversations casts its dark
and i can't see the landscape any more


I do not know it
do not recognise and
cannot own it




where is there to stand
except the present?

nowhere else to look but forward

silver

paper
cotton
leather


linen
lace



teeth (skin)
and fingernails


scraping teetering on the sharpest edge
of hope and disappointment
ground(?) which bears no comfortable weight

no time to rest
no
none
at all
who could have guessed?



if we had forseen
what would we be, now?
- how would we have done it, then?
how?
how would we?

would we?


willow is in there somewhere
famed for bending without breaking

if green
or living
or wet through



roped one to the other by shared regret
disputed memories
climbing side by side
scarcely together

our clumsy feet dislodging arguments like rocks
worn smooth with handling
compulsive handling
smooth
still heavy weights

your face reflecting distance and uncertain
in the uneven patina of hurt


i could go on,
pursue the tiresome metaphor of compasses
stuck
and maps
tattered muddied and torn

or lost


i could go on
if i had the heart for it


we could

if we had



16 to 19 have no name
likewise 21 to 24

faceless or familiar

the photographs cannot be trusted
unreliable signposts
to dubious destinations


and there i go again
poetic detours slyly round the swamp
slipping eliding
swerving to miss
the sticky mud
the persistently massing bruise



i could give names to those anonymous years
if i had the heart for it


i could
if i did

we could
if we had

All Days Lost Days

by carol ann duffy



All Days Lost Days

Living
in and out of the past,
inexplicably
so many things have died
in me.

In and out like a tide,
each tear
holds a tiny hologram.
Even this early
I am full of years.

Here are the little gravestones
where memory
stands in the wild grass,
watching the future
arrive in a line of big black cars.

All days
lost days, in and out of themselves
between dreaming
and dreaming again and half-
remembering


carol ann duffy, new selected poems 1984-2004, Picador 2004

wet rag

wrung out
misery welling up secretly liquid

seeping sodden
creeping sudden shadowing

oozing in fibre and pore

heavy and cold
limpen and leaden

scrap of enormity