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Fragments

  • Posted on February 24, 2019 at 9:42 pm

You know, when someone is dying, but they can rally for a day, seem strong and lucid, and it seems a sign, not of recovery but an inevitability. I passed someone on a late autumn day that was like summer, and we exchanged our ‘good day’s. Was it? After new records this year, is it falling apart?

 

It is a good day – she stands as complete
as yesterday five years ago
gathered together from her bed
making sense and in command
with fragments in a sentence
that is still real.

Yes, it is a good day.

It is a good day – as the summer extends
into a reluctant autumn
floods recede from hurricanes
matchwood lies after typhoons
expense of fires and high seas
seem unreal.

Yes, it is a good day.

It is a good day – the sun is warm if low
a container ship has sailed
an easy north-west passage
and harvests were shorter too
drowned villages dried
stood real.

It is still a good day.

Today she left us – the leaves are red
we had known all year, kept
the good days to protect us
as everything slowly changed
as darkness dawned
became real.

It is still.

A ship has sailed – ice          fragments
make sense          shorten
it is a good day          for change
we move          inland          leave villages
and coast          gather
it is real.

It is.

 

© 2018 Andie Davidson

Autumn clothes

  • Posted on February 24, 2019 at 9:23 pm

worn sparingly
a low sun and still too much

twelve years
ago I was 50, a tipping point
in understanding mortality

twelve years ago
you were in school, gatherings
in our world of your friends

twelve years ago you were
calling me a hippie – we both were green
by degrees in my garden

twelve years, two degrees,
two is the difference between a frost
and a frosty day

two is a third of
the difference between Brighton and
Yorkshire in summer

two degrees
are the difference between a heatwave
and a heatwave

one is nothing
the other is forever, neither small,
yet far too big

it is everything
everywhere and all of us, nothing else,
now numbered

today
today is our tipping point unseen
a day of silence

Autumn leaves
unsparing in a low sun, still
too much

The day after publication, October 2018, of the IPCC Special Report that gave a 12 year window to avoid 2 degrees global warming.

2019 © Andie Davidson