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 moon but in its own secret particular irregularity

it waves and washes

grief

crashing and seeping

changing everything

and withdraws

leaving shine, 

patterns, 

sometimes treasures 

carefully cast up on the wet shifting shingle

© Sally Alsford 2009

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 precarious worlds 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

© Sally Alsford 2009

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

looking

i keep looking for your brief blurry outline through the front door glass

hurrying ahead to be first arrived, for hugs, smiles, bringing little gifts, giving the kitchen sink a "proper"clean

tea and talks and walks

your little shape, too small to be hugged too hard



i keep thinking of you in charity shops

this and that you'd like, but would it fit you now?
our history could be traced through our charity shopping



i keep wanting you




i keep listening for the sound of you


but i'm not sure i remember your voice

bravery

your absence pulls like a sore tooth

crowding out the doings of the day
persistent disconcerting deafening silence


filling the edges of consciousness
the corners of the room
the gap on the sofa

an aching gap disproportionate to the size of you
who are no longer here


The mundane transformed by loss
into feats of overwhelming bravery

like taking toddler steps without a hand to hold

sleeping in a single bed
preparing a meal for one
making mince pies
shopping, signing cards
returning to an empty silent 'home'



the pain of remembering is better than the fear of forgetting


but we don't speak your name enough

dark luxuries

loss
sometimes demands to be recognised

wallowed bathed submerged in
indulged



Felt



A friend of a friend described it as the "dark luxury"



Here are some luxuries so dark and rich and beautiful and bitter that I need to share them.

It may be self-indulgent, but thats partly the point.

redemption

secretly
and in the silent sticky dark

spring prepares
waiting bated breathless

tiniest emergent growth
searing splitting seed

casting off
wriggling out

tentative roots
searching through cold compacted earth






silently
in the secret stifling dark

tendrils
curling

imperceptibly
fighting fingering up to sunshine

featherlight
unfurling

stretching awake
numb with anticipation





stifling

in the silently patient dark


something

or nothing









This emerged - to do with my life, my heart just now - but also after seeing the film of Ian McEwan's Atonement. So much .... feeling... to do with guilt and forgiveness, regret, remorse, loss, the need for hope, how to move from the past into the future... And winter approaches.

words

not so lost for words these days




pouring spewing out in jumbles
inspiration of desperation




I was not so wordy before

nor ever so deeply silent




and never so lost

widget

Some internal widget

automatic overflow
esoteric unsuspected
ticks away

internal
monitoring ups and downs
highs and low





is there a ratio?
some quota I don't understand?

that the process
- random beyond control -
must have some balance?



Is there a secret waterline?
normality functionality only bearable so long
an unused muscle
easily strained
reaches capacity, some predetermined scope

mettle fatigue gives way to overflow.




Is there a rule?
every twenty-first, thirteenth, eighth hour?
an optimum interval for respite and recovery?

there is no recovery
only absence




overflow trickles into awareness
pulsing
prickling at my eyelids

triggered by nothing at all
emotional cramp seizing out of nowhere




the widget
a trembling compass point
hair trigger fault line



grief like a thirst not to be met by salty tears
nor without



they come again.
simply because.


they're there.
they must be cried
and no one else can do it for me.

drips

the days drip by

at some distance

distances
distancing
doling out their separate continuities

pooling into patterns, welling up

strange familiar currents
ripples
depths and calms
dreamlike surreal



a drip at a time
wearing new grooves into resistant stone
eroding the ground under my feet
layering ugly limescale like a scar


what will i do?


feeble fickle attention snags briefly on some drifting interest

swirls and eddies
caught between extremes of drought and drowning
out of my depth


what do these drips and drabs of time have to do with me?

body

There wasn't nearly enough holding
kissing cuddling stroking

she became so fragile by the end
it felt as if she'd break if squeezed too tight


I washed her failing body more than once
almost unbearable
handle with care
cautious of crushing
painfully precious solid heavy distorted frangible flesh

clumsy as clay
precious as porcelain



It wasn't enough

there was a once
a moment
eternity of months ago
i kneeled and buried my face in her poor dear stomach

we wept
she stroked my hair
i can still feel her fingers

If only i could be back there still
not present in this here and now


she should be here to hold me

excision

it hurts me how readily the words come:

dad
dad's house
to see my father
dad will be here


my father


tidy the spare room
single sheets for a single bed
2 pillows
1 towel






i don't want it to be easy.



how is it possible so quickly to adapt?
to move from plural to singular?
we to me?
they to he?
a pair to alone?

suggesting at some level
(though I don't see where or how)
i know she's not returning


ellision excision
swift surgical
pain

the precision
of a moment

an extraction
completed, final, done.


now you see her
now you don't



My vocabulary has adapted
- healed -


but

i can't stop scratching at the scar

symptomatic

who could predict the symptoms?


not the theoretical expectable unsurprising numbness, anger, denial, pain
familiar presences old friends


- but who could predict loss of memory?
failure of concentration?
incidental distractable inattention ?


is memory is too painful, precious, precarious to be risked even on little things?
too busy cataloguing hoarding gloating

preoccupied with its irreplaceable nonrenewable resources

burying away for winter sustenance
lying in wait, preparing to halt my tracks with some long-forgotten newly precious treasure





why does the mind shy away from the routine, trivial, predictable?
childlike refusing responsibility?
wouldn't you think the small and everyday would be escape from the large and uncontainable?


and of course it is.

sometimes.

and then it isn't any more.

The mind feelings faculties shut down
an automatic trigger somewhere toggles offline
clicking imperceptibly intooutof place
simply blankly refusing to deal with the everyday
the banal
the trivial
the vital inescapable unassailable fact of it

evading past - future - moment





lethargy apathy
blank blank blank
how long will the day take to pass if i just sit here?





Panic
- now where does that come from?

unexpected unsettling
urgent desolation bewildered like a small small lost child

bereft of consoling horizons
facing the newly-strange without a compass
or a hand to hold
or a place to go





Emotions ambush
assailed on the sudden by tears painful distress
in the midst of the okay getting on keeping busy enjoying forgetting living life

suddenly the hole is there
and i am in it.¹





Sleep calls constantly
not recovery, recuperation, rejuvenation
but still respite recoil reclusion unravelling

refuge
resistance to reality
relinquishment


Except that there is then the waking
the return

which sometimes is fine.
Okay.
No, really.
Who could predict?


and then when it hits, the blow hits harder.

loss all over again



Who knows whats possible any more?
who could predict?











¹ a perfect phrase from paula, thankyou.

silence

we sat around her bed

talking laughing crying
listening in the silence to her complicated breathing

holding her hands
2 on each side

as if to tether her


and then she stopped
and there was silence


And now everything is different

rain

it rained the day you died

did you know?

teardrops on the glass
raindrops on our faces


i wanted to push your bed into the garden

cool refreshing gentle fall on your hot hot parched skin
sweet rain in your dry dry mouth

and then the sky cleared
and the sun set

she

no more difficult steps

no more tortuous excursions to the window, the toilet, the door

no more strong determined fragile tired tired smiles

her life has shrunk to this room
this bed

absorbed now in the process of each breath
she is so preoccupied with the business of dying
she is too busy for living

she

the primary she
my beginning and ending