There are breezes that travel only by grasses
Shortlisted for the Bridport Prize (Poetry) in 2011 by UK Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy.
There are breezes that travel only by grasses
There are breezes that travel only by grasses,
and those left uncut, nettle-strewn—I am there.
In the churchyard, dress spread against stings,
I black my fingers in insects and the pale
skins of leaves vein-shone with afternoon.
Such solitude, these stones resting quieted
and all spring full of leaf! The bushed brown
crackle at trunk’s end whispers to the moss
at billow’s peak, here where the ground rises
with bodies reclaimed, made nothing, grown again.
The sun is clean, it handles the blossom first,
great white blush jumbling the new air, its
dove-lit shadow branching calf to calf
at my spread-eagled request. Picking sentries
in a brush of gold and grey, the cluckers and
chitterers dive eye-first from the bells,
exploding in beaten, all-uncertain wing.
This is when I come together; between these stones
and the weeds left to grow is my quarter hour.
The breezes flail out against my palms, and I
play them at their protest. Hush.