Unfathomable

All these years of living in this place inside,
knowing and not knowing its contours and walls,
temperature and tightness.
The long hours of each day spent in here,
yet still sometimes the total mystery
of waking up and finding myself
in half-light, dawn eating through thick curtains,
the outlines of cupboards or chairs emerging.
That coming to consciousness;
suddenly finding it unknown,
unconnected, unfathomable.

Rain

and I walk up on the moors in the cold damp air, water dripping from my hat brim, trouser legs growing dark, the colours of the grasses shining out of the fine mist, shining ginger plumes like fire, and I walk in deep muddy puddles of old rain like cold tea, my hands in black and orange mittens grow pink and moist, warm at the palms cool at the fingertips, and I see no one

Another Train Song

This train swaying slightly,
sunlight strobing through the trees
then gone - as we plunge into a tunnel.
This train our means of locomotion
from H to L, along the rails
predictable, preordained.

This train bound for Leeds
and all that is in it -
shops, museums, dog shit,
fading Victorian splendour.

A silver birch, its trunk wrapped
in white paper, shines
like the flashes on your jacket -
everything reflecting glory
this brilliant day
swaying on this blue train.

Remember Remember

Down to the allotment in dazzling sunlight this morning to pick kale, broccoli and chard. Then under the trees behind the plots with my big blue IKEA bag to collect firewood. It is more hidden now than the last time, a thick carpet of russet, yellow and gold leaves covers quite a lot of the wind fallen branches, but still it only takes twenty minutes to fill my bag to the top with kindling and some slightly wider gauge wood. I love this, scanning the ground, bending down to pick up sticks that can go straight in my bag, long branches I have to break into smaller lengths, with a series of satisfying cracks and snaps. I love it too because at G's funeral, her partner F spoke about the first and the last time he saw G. The last time, a few days before she died, they gathered firewood in Heaton Park in Manchester, slightly expecting at any moment a '50s style park keeper to come and tell them off. G full of delight at getting something for nothing! Gathering wood for the fire will always be one way I can feel close to her.

Now, I am making a mixed vegetable soup - onion, celery, carrot, parsnip with a little fresh red chilie - for tomorrow's lunch, when my friend C will be here. Listening to Bob Dylan's Modern Times.

Yesterday something loosened its grip on me, when I remembered that it is five years ago exactly that I was suspended from my job with corporate-style-children's-charity-which-cannot-be-named. My birthday was on Sunday that year. It was the end of half term. I went in to work on Monday morning, and in a team meeting the shit began to hit the fan, and later copiously in a one to one meeting with one of the big managers from London, who explained that a complaint had been made by one of my team about my private blog (the late lamented Smoke and Ash). The floor fell from under me, my stomach followed. The next day I was suspended on full pay. I never returned. My body is incredibly sensitive to the return of the times of the season, of the year, when traumatic things have happened to me. I knew I was beginning to feel unease and a renewed grief as G's anniversary approaches. But I had totally forgotten what was happening to me in November 2009. The last time my world fell apart. It all makes sense to me, or to my body at least, and I feel an easing in me I can't rationally explain, but it is so. Remembering rather than repeating.

Afternoon

Afternoon, and the low sun floodlights the fields.
At the same time an intimation of the coming darkness.
Schoolchildren in blue uniforms arrive back on a yellow bus.
I eat fudge and wonder at the size of a lily flower,
my eyes sore again from crying.

Willowherb V

52

So, I've been 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,
14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,
23,24,25,26,27,28,
29,30,31,32,33,
34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,
42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51
for a year each. Now it's the turn of
52
for me to be it,
or have it as the French say.