soft grey-blue shirt,
humble, yet so over-drawn
by tiny threads of white; the
little
striping pleasures, births
of
calf, of love, of child; flame-lit
shadows; geraniums and fresh-baked bread;
wine in all the water of his
life. His knees
Patchwork people spin spread wide, easing his arm on the wooden
their lives together, pin wheelbacked chair, the man slept; the
their hopes to tucking neatly thumb-stick slid to the quarries.
every patterned corner, delicate, His wife set by her knitting
towards a sun-lit resting place close to finger-seal both eyes;
against some bright, harmonious
stranger; to kneel in blessing.
to keeping disciplined the shape of life, its
honeycomb of careful oddity, flowered
gay and this a bride-maid
frivolity stitched piece by piece yet gown with tiny rose buds,
so entrancingly, courageously, on ground all dusky pink, dusted
passion-dyed sea-green deeps; by such darking seeds of time; in
to sprinkling butterflies ripening came harvest; that wide-eyed
over rainbowed storms.
hand-maiden, heart-riven child, rests now
dream-dead, her crooked fingers sleeping deep
a little yellowed now in her apron, idle, stilled; the sunlight
this blue-sprigged white; splintering on her wedding ring, cold
close-wrapping once the baby, as this love, so second-best, all
soft; the son so warm and gentle, she could give her dying man:
bright, peaceable as autumn sunlight. another groom, unknowing,
In the dawnworld of his childhood,
cupped kiss-froze a rose-bud.
between slim acorn-coloured hands, most often
did some trembling creature nestle still,
healed; and safe. He loved all life.
“Regret to inform you..” in Mons;
in agony; in June; cheek on a
tiny jay’s feather, blue,
blood-sprigged white.
