De Profundis

All day the solstice wore grey.

We withdrew to the deep.

Night buries us now, safe

where bone drops from bone.

The heart cracks loud

under a constant throb and grip of the root.

We bitter the taste of grit;

food falls from our hands like straw.

Life has not lived at this table

since the sprung god died,

turned grapes

blood on his tongue.

Stripped for the pit all these long years,

we feel the scourge in each raw wound;

have smelled oblivion in every festering since

and there is no help in us.

We have moved from Bethlehem into the desert;

sands shift under our feet.

We raise an altar to death on the outcrop

of  birth and call it hope.

We cannot survive on the bedrock:

cannot face the disordered stars

from which will crawl on a far day
another transient god.

The Birks of Aberfeldy

It’s the narrowest minute

to see you go,

stand beneath bared branches

above the drop of the fall,

duns, ochres disowned

quicker than time

for the wind

to strip the twig

of its last gilt leaf.

Chalice Well

Stay away from the blood-water,

the lion’s mouth

the thrumming under the cover.

It is dangerous to watch

these waters well,

fall down the drop,

slopping from channel to pool.

One cup is never enough

for women who turn and return.

It beats in the veins till

its throb and pulse force

rhythms to fullness,

reach for shadows

that swarm by the wall.

Where is your white life now

as you pass through the gate?

Not under the gathered yew,

crabbed apple,

the tearing thorn.