You are currently browsing the archives for 17 July 2019.
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Estuary: black, white, green

  • Posted on July 17, 2019 at 11:47 pm

The spittled olive river is walking
its weed rafts to the sea.
Soon it will be running,
the leisurely dredging swans
becoming sailors, fleet-black paddles
lifted from green to steerboard.

Reeds, still to their throats in bed
strain silt, rise, slow-coated.
Waiters at sharp attention, egrets
shirted white and boat-eyed, are
becoming fishers in the cracks
for the failed retreaters.

At the next turn, tidy coots
will walk among the swans.
Black, nodding suits, railing stilts,
chipping in the emptying gorge
on steady flapping feet
where salt is washed twice daily.

But for now the river is walking,
quiet and still and green. Then
a rare punctuation, sudden plunge
s-bent neck of cormorant rising,
shock wave to the shaggy banks
and mad long splash to climb the air.

Calm is quick to return, as turning
the swans’ state-procession begins.
Prowed with gold the royal line
never admits to following the moon;
it is as if they are taking the stream
by force of their silent pageantry.

2018 © Andie Davidson

These books of ours

  • Posted on July 17, 2019 at 11:34 pm
picture from a book of hours

A reflection on family photo albums left behind You are the mother of my children in the photos with them where I am not – and which I do not have. They still ours these days long since the great divide of all things that pressed images between leaves. Those books of hours testaments of devotion of our middle ages, fully illustrated by the faith once shared. And I? I am part of ‘ours’ post-reformation spared the assembly of you and they and those testaments. 2019 © Andie Davidson

Letter

  • Posted on July 17, 2019 at 11:14 pm

Write me a letter I can wait for.
 
Let me find you on the mat
lean you against my teapot
warm your thoughtful words.
 
Send me an envelope to open.
 
Let me slip a blade carefully
in the gap above the tongue
where you licked it closed.
 
Choose a special stamp.
 
First or second is fine, but
so I can spend a moment
on its miniature design.
 
Spread your words over pages.
 
Unfolding them, turning,
uncovering you at leisure,
I will bring you quietly home.
 
We could email, message, text.
 
I could open, read and answer
in a moment in a thought
it could all be said and sudden.
 
But we would be in a crowd.
 
In the clutter of chatter and
comment, appeals, spam – and
I would rush not to lose you.
 
So send me a letter I can wait for.
 
Give me time to expect you,
joy to discover you, patience
with simplicity – and tea.

2018 © Andie Davidson