all the maps of Russia stop at Moscow
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tuning fork
Lovers
We're wide-eyed and wrapped in love, this late spring: sprawled in our desire, playing, he's like a cat, batting at fat, furry bees - under the softness, the need, like a sting that quickens the breath, catches at the throat; spread out, his gorgeous weight, all arms and legs I'm drawn to join him, let myself be led to step out of shyness, let it fall, float like a silken dress, rumpled on the floor; the bed's both harbour and the ship we sail in, his touch mapping the contours of my skin: hand on my hip, like a handle to a door; on my belly, tightening secret springs; shoulders, tracing the memory of wings. July 2005
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Winter Lent
This is our winter lent: the turning of the wheel.
A smouldering wick will flame to light the dark,
The ice be broken and the water blessed,
A downy feather lift the grinding weight
And yokes be eased that we might find our rest;
That snow can cover rutted, weary ways
And fallen seeds in frozen earth take root
And masters dress as servants at the feast
And sacred oaks bring forth, at last, a shoot;
This is our winter lent: the turning of the wheel. November 2005
- edit: now with music from the tigre, here.
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Seven Advent Antiphons
Orange-rinded, hard and heavy in its pith
the pomegranate gives up its jewelled seeds
to be winkled out, like hard-won wisdom.
My father stands at the head of the table
bread-keeper, loaf-ward, conducting tea-time
operations with toasters, kettles, clementines.
Last year’s ugly doorknob of an amaryllis bulb
once more does the unthinkable: a glossy green sword
pierces potted earth and gleams into flower.
The small flat weight of a brass key in my palm
says I’ve come home; flung loose, and drawn again
into the old, familiar orbit.
Stumbling back from the pub on Christmas eve
we look up and see a field of frosty stars.
In a few hours the world will tip to morning.
Ribbons of red crepe suspended from the beams
hang a foil-embossed king, trembling amongst
the other cards in currents of heated air.
A night-light flickers in its papered jar.
A lit beauty, consuming but contained:
flesh and blood, all flame: O Immanuel.
December 2004
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Hold you me
I’ve held a baby curling in my arms
and felt the secret teasing out of touch
as sheltered in my crook she reached to clutch
and broke my heart with simple opened palms;
so you, God, in whose shade I trembling dwell
delight at my every blind and sorrowed reach
and laugh to see the healing of the breach –
the creeping of a loved one from her shell –
and more: for though she gropes and mewls to find
and only feels the truth of her own freight
already met and found in holy bind
her hold’s outheld by another’s shining weight –
so, quietened, covered by the holy three
in velvet glory, I surrender. Hold you me.
September 2004
The title's stolen from Real Live Preacher.
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All the maps of Russia stop at Moscow
but home lies somewhere beyond, under
the blue bowl of sky, ceramic, unglazed.
I’ve heard tell of vast forests, immense fields,
black soil. But there are no maps, and
my only clue is a mustard seed wrapped
in cabbage-leaf complexities of skin
and heart. I must make my own way, collect
to myself the riches I hope to find:
a pinecone, a tug of sheep’s wool, a smooth
pebble, a papery seedcase, a sea shell.
I am a riffle in the stream, catching
particles of gold; of light. And if there is,
after all, a home to be found, I need
to see the shining thread, to feel its pull.
new year poem, 16th January 2005 'All the maps of Russia stop at Moscow' – Terry Waite, overheard in the Norrington Room of Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford, 11th December 2004.
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