Watching the river
A moorhen chick
brown bathroom phantom
bobs on sheeny slate
of deep mountainbound river
in thin and drizzling mist.
Up he tips, wobbly blob,
then plunges
almost playfully, but
with earnest purpose
down into what darkness propelled ?
Wet
and cold
I stand
still
turn my back to the wind and,
hands in pockets,
shoulderhunched
squinting
I watch . . .
HOW LONG ?
How long will you wait,
before you let yourself know,
know in your own heart
you are the first one to live with - and love ? How long will you look,
gazing outside yourself
for love, comfort and care,
your strength, your power
wasting out and away,
seeping stream into dry sand
leaving only a trace sucked smooth ?
How long still?
Until, in the tiny strip of freedom
we may tread,
here, between stream and stone,
in the infinity of the Now,
I can unfreeze frozen Janus' fixed stare back into the past, and forward
to another spring,
and - in that moment -
in that fraction of Here-ness,
let myself Be
beween Then and When.
Battle for Deliverance
A heath. Hot. Airless.
Blackfingered tree scrapes an orange sky.
Spanned wings swoop landing in brakescoop.
Brass claws stretch
then settle.
There, where white-flung limbs flee
a luminous torso,
two round wounds weep into pale ribs. There, where bleeding flesh lives
on scorched ground,
scissors shine open,
next to two breastsoff.
Carrion syllabub cream nipplecherried.
Beakhook tears entrails,
as eyes dart watchful
with each flickered turn
of neckfeathered ruffle.
Christine Shearman 1970s