Gosling
There was rain overnight, and where damp leaves,
lace eaten by insects, stuck to the paperbark trees
that slenderly bowed over a riverbank near a secluded,
small cemetery, small goslings swam past in a row.
A shadowed rusty iron fencing falls over cracked earth
that tumbles to the river nearside of the path.
A butterfly glance-wings a pastel underside, and patterns
of black and white diamonds over a grave she is near.
She left her flowers there, warm wilting stems of iris ,
wood anemone, mug wort and bell-grass, buds of
decaying dreams on a great-grand-mother's-grave.
It was only when she was leaving that she felt a touch
on her shoulder, a whisper of thankyou in her ear,
that shivered all the way down to her wet fingers
curling tightly around an amber cotton reel in her pocket,
as she picked and darned her way back home.
Karenjoan 1985 & 2020
There was rain overnight, and where damp leaves,
lace eaten by insects, stuck to the paperbark trees
that slenderly bowed over a riverbank near a secluded,
small cemetery, small goslings swam past in a row.
A shadowed rusty iron fencing falls over cracked earth
that tumbles to the river nearside of the path.
A butterfly glance-wings a pastel underside, and patterns
of black and white diamonds over a grave she is near.
She left her flowers there, warm wilting stems of iris ,
wood anemone, mug wort and bell-grass, buds of
decaying dreams on a great-grand-mother's-grave.
It was only when she was leaving that she felt a touch
on her shoulder, a whisper of thankyou in her ear,
that shivered all the way down to her wet fingers
curling tightly around an amber cotton reel in her pocket,
as she picked and darned her way back home.
Karenjoan 1985 & 2020