beauty, decay, love, lilies. Memory

starts here on the stairs, in skylight.

Cows chew eternally. I’m eight

in this memory, I’m always eight.

There’s a painting that speaks to this

malady of recurrence — an indigo twilight

of melting clocks, which shows Mother

Time as a kind of persistence, memory

and dream, coupling on the ground.

Everything we love returns to the ground.

Mother, father, childhood. When I’m eight

I know nothing of betrayal, but the memory

persists. Only once, is it different from this.

The playground is empty, and my mother,

no longer a girl, is walking a ridge of light.

Now she’s at the wooden gate. Light

from Welsh stars tumbles to the ground.

Bronze cliffs in the distance sing. My mother

has met a man. She’s going away. I’m eight,

but I’ve always known she’ll leave all this.

Forsaking, after all, is a kind of memory.

My mother is eight and in Wales again.

She’s in the playground of memory,

swinging towards light, towards this.

The Art of Losing

It begins with the death

of the childhood pet —

the dog who refuses to eat

for days, the bird or fish

found sideways, dead.

And you think the hole

in the universe,

caused by the emission

of your grief, is so deep

it will never be rectified.

But it’s only the start

of an endless litany

of betrayals:

the cruelty of school,

your first bastard boyfriend,

the neighbour’s son

going slowly mad.

You catch hold of losing,

and suddenly, it’s everywhere —

the beggars in the street,

the ravage of a distant war

in your sleep.

And when grandfather

hobbles up to the commode

to relieve himself like a girl

without bothering to shut

the door, you begin to realise

what it means to exist

in a world without.

People around you grow old

and die, and it’s explained

as a kind of going away —

to God, or rot, or to return

as an ant. And once again,

you’re expected to be calm

about the fact that you’ll never see

the dead again,

never hear them enter a room

or leave it,

never have them touch

the soft parting of your hair.

Let it be, your parents advise:

it’s nothing.

Wait till your favourite aunt

keels over in a shopping mall,

or the only boy you loved

drives off a cliff and survives,

but will never walk again.

That’ll really do you in,

make you want to slit your wrists

(in a metaphorical way, of course,

because you’re strong and know

that life is about surviving these things).

And almost all of it might

be bearable if it would just end

at this. But one day your parents

will sneak into the garden

to stand under the stars,

and fade, like the lawn,

into a mossy kind of grey.

And you must let them.

Not just that.

You must let them pass

into that wilderness

and understand that soon,

you’ll be called aside

to put away your paper wings,