Somerfield

07/10/13

Here are two poems that I wrote in May 2013. They explore some of my experiences as a child at my (old) family home over the course of my life. The poems are very much connected, tangled by the vines and roots of the back garden. A part of me is still tangled there too, caught in my childhood and refusing to accept the present. The inevitability of change is sometimes too overwhelming.

Q&A

Please excuse me as I mourn

the trees felled by my mother.

Meanwhile the grass is torn

by the absence of my brother.

My family is a flower garden

whose existence is long forgotten.

I’m a glass bottle with a cork in,

that set sail across the ocean.

My family is a flower garden,

though the beds are bare and barren.

All those who have remained there

wilted in lonely pairings.

Please excuse me as I mourn them,

my overturned, spoiled blossoms.

The very seed of my forebears

dried up, died over the years.

I remember ma on the mountain,

a quick quake exhumed the earth.

All the layers caught underneath her;

were black dirt spoiling the turf.

The chain’s choking, chain-smoking

in the land of the third eye.

The just joking, just toking

in the land of the dead and dry.

Some bridges will lead you over

to where trees and flowers grow tall.

Since the present’s held over a candle

leave the memory on the wall.

Since the future’s an elm’s shadow

leave the old candle in the hall.

Since the future’s an elm’s shadow,

you’ll be the best of them all.

Well, the beans are scattered everywhere,

sprouting the stalk of an eerie dream.

It was I, baptized by nature,

that somehow slipped out in between.

Please excuse me as I mourn

the trees felled by my mother.

Meanwhile my heart is torn

by the absence of my brother.

Will I walk the length of the bridge,

or will I stand where my feet burn?

Will I hold my book to a candle,

or will the pages be willed to turn?

Cold

When the vines arched over us,

and the plums stained our toes,

I heard the swelling inside you

as we lay in the earth.

You were a mother that day,

though all the children had strayed.

But now whenever I lay,

I hear a cold, grey voice say:

“Two, but never three,”

my grandmother to me.

“Two,” though I’d’ve three.

My grandmother let me.

All your hunger pains grew,

into a tumour or two.

I heard the empty house cry,

and saw the fish pond turn dry.

The very source of your love,

was where you placed me above.

Warmest womb of them all,

I hear a cold, grey voice call:

“Two, but never three,”

my grandmother to me.

“Two,” though I’d’ve three;

my grandmother let me.

The first shock like a quake;

still we tremor and shake.

Sometimes a loss can’t be just,

but in that grey voice I trust:

“Two, but never three,”

my grandmother to me.

“Two,” though I’d’ve three;

my grandmother let me.

“Two, but never three,”

alternate memory.

“Two,” though I’d’ve three;

did my grandmother see?