Three times that year I woke
as ground shook under our bed,
stopped a clatter of bottles
twitching on the chest.
Stable by daybreak, I said
nothing, feared more cracks
under the pressure. Monuments
toppled across Europe,
certainties fell with the Wall
while you slept on,
no touchstones anywhere.
The house is hollow where keys
don’t turn in the locks.
I watch the sun between limp curtains
as it trails through time with the
clock’s beats.
I have turned my back on familiar
furniture,
refuse to answer the knock at the
door.
Here is the drip of the tap,
the cat’s cry,
the dead letter on the mat.
Staying
back at the white gate, I see our tipped field slip
above
the burn as the children sledge and twist.
Curves
slice snow, except at the crash-points –
a
stand of gorse, the slack cairn,
your
gather of stones before ploughing,
by
the burn, those branches clumped
where
the crisp elm fell in autumn -
spots
where the churning stays.
On
this last, drawn afternoon of the year,
the
children manoeuvre, count their runs
above
the whispering burn, their shrieks shaking
plodding
grey sky from the hilltop.
Hunger
pulls them up the slope;
the
sledge, tame as a tired dog, follows.
Their
faces are fire and laughter below the house,
over
the gashed burn flowing.
