leaving the glow of the city behind,

the good roads dwindling to little more than a track

on its tortuous climb through the mountains?

Why heed that old tug of the blood,

the skin’s first inkling as the mercury dips

that tonight the white horse is flying,

covering the ground between here and the past

if it weren’t on the off-chance

that you were already braving the dark

to meet me again at that gap in the sky

where we stood, open-mouthed, to catch the first wafers?

Things Left Out All Night

acquire a gravitas –

the spade presiding over rows of lettuces

grown solemn as a cross

the white sheet worn thin by dreams

still glimmering with stars…

as if something had come to pass –

a trowel, half-sunk in earth,

patient as rust

the wheelbarrow stood in long grass

absolved by rain.

*  *  *

Homing

You could hold it in your hand –

this all encompassing desire

housed in a few ounces of feather and bone,

the distance between release –

nights of mountainous cold and hunger –

and a known darkness

where something close to love might stand

shaking the pan of grain

and calling softly.

Short-hold

This is the gap before territory,

before the first fight, the first sex.

The black cat knows it, twitching his tail

on the wrong lawn.

This is the time when our luck might stray –

the syllable flit swoops through the trees,

leaves behind reminder

after red reminder.

Even this lamplight’s provisional,

tomorrow may shine from a different window;

our lives are still fragile

wrapped in old headlines and stars.

How empty the white bookshelves are,

how easily tipped…

weightless the walls of clocks, pictures, mirrors…

I stand at the open door, calling…

Meanwhile you’ve lit the difficult boiler.

All night its steady breathing fills the kitchen

like the sleep of a new-born

we haven’t yet named.

Wayfarer

People always think they belong somewhere,

some patch of earth claims them more than any other,

but his feet have always told him otherwise,

settling for a few days here or there by chance –

a kind word at the right moment,

a dry barn with no lock on the door,

a farmer with a blind eye.

But for weeks now he’s been showing up

every day to tend this garden –

weeding, dead-heading, mowing the grass –

small tasks that somehow

keep coming around.

A neighbour’s lent a caravan and a yard,

someone else donates a telly

and suddenly he’s been here long enough

to see the runner’s scarlet flowers

turn into beans, to eat them,

steaming, from a bowl with butter.

Part of the furniture! they pull his leg

pouring him another glass of red

that tastes of the ground it came from.

It still feels strange for him to say goodnight,

and walk back up the lane

to where?

‘Home’ is the wrong word

but what else to call it –

this blue glow from his window