A plangent clanging.  A bridge twangs
above the Dodder, gusts of wind
vibrating steel, making it resonate.  Here,
broken quarry stones, a garden

eked.  I recall your shouts, daughter
and son, as I climbed the shoulder
of the cotoneaster wall
to root out ivy.  Bumblebees vanished

in my sundering – spiders, wasps,
finches.  I regret them now,
who was your giant, who could do
no wrong, spinning yarns that stretched

long-limbed across the world –
ostrich and cheetah, elephant and giraffe,
shouldering us home again.  
How fabulous our old stories grow

in the eerie, crimson glow
of this storm-tossed summer evening.  
My heavy-duty shirt, hung
on the linen line, swings, hand-wrings,

while the fruiting plum tree bounces
and low-bush snowberries fly
from their skeletal hinges.  The maddened
world dances towards decline.  

Still the powers that answer to hope –
wind and water, leaf and fin,
pelt and plume – attempt to heal the holes
we burn in nature’s heart, quell

the extravagances by which we indulge
our contending humours.  And still
the amulet of each new sunrise
conjures sky through the blue curtains.
 

—Patrick Deeley

Poet’s Website

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