A Couple of Poems
Tangle
My father's old donkey jacket,
cement dusted, jaggy edged.
I can still picture him in it,
collar turned up against the cold,
off to the pub for a few pints
and a game of darts.
As a child, I'd hide inside that jacket,
breathe in the smell of cigar.
On me, the jacket is still ten sizes too big.
I plunge my hands into its pockets,
imagine my father's hands
pushing up through the lining.
Our tangle of fingers and thumbs.
Summer's End
At summer's end
we came to race boats
across the ford at Kineton.
We carried nets, thermos flasks,
wore red to deter wasps.
Today the valley thrums with insects.
Ants like magnetic particles
drawn to the surface.
I tread them back into the earth.
Vulnerable to drought,
the ford is a cobble-stoned puddle.
Silt will slow its journey
to the Thames.
No sound, no trickle, no gush.
Two horses gallop over,
a faint smell of grass and peppermint,
then shy away.
In this moment of birdsong,
ox-eye daisies and variegated light,
it's the way someone has fixed the rotten gate
with blue twine that captures me.
This one thing:
the impermanence of wood.
My father's old donkey jacket,
cement dusted, jaggy edged.
I can still picture him in it,
collar turned up against the cold,
off to the pub for a few pints
and a game of darts.
As a child, I'd hide inside that jacket,
breathe in the smell of cigar.
On me, the jacket is still ten sizes too big.
I plunge my hands into its pockets,
imagine my father's hands
pushing up through the lining.
Our tangle of fingers and thumbs.
Summer's End
At summer's end
we came to race boats
across the ford at Kineton.
We carried nets, thermos flasks,
wore red to deter wasps.
Today the valley thrums with insects.
Ants like magnetic particles
drawn to the surface.
I tread them back into the earth.
Vulnerable to drought,
the ford is a cobble-stoned puddle.
Silt will slow its journey
to the Thames.
No sound, no trickle, no gush.
Two horses gallop over,
a faint smell of grass and peppermint,
then shy away.
In this moment of birdsong,
ox-eye daisies and variegated light,
it's the way someone has fixed the rotten gate
with blue twine that captures me.
This one thing:
the impermanence of wood.