Birse

You offer a silver body to the Sun-God.

Nearer each year and nearer;
your arms plead, leaves weep then die,
morning and evening almost touch
the hem of His garment, your roots
deepening into the darkness.

A blackbird even takes you for a throne.

He sings, proud of his work
fertilising the eggs of his beloved,
watches her build, then warm
his offspring - feed them for flight,
feathering-up for golden skies.

One morning. as he sings,
the black king falls; his wings useless.

A boy, a gun, glint eye and steady hand.

This evil posseses your heart,
tarnishes your silver,
leaves now dry-eyed,
arms hardly lifting…

The woodsman shakes his head,
sharpens his axe of steel;
its edge glistens…

The God would not save you.

Ironing a Sari

This hand dyed cotton
unfolding on and on,
until its face and colour
are young again.

Such length is like a path
down to the river,
which morning and evening
feels the feet of women

who wander from the village
to the washing place
and laugh about their men
beside smooth stones.

The cloth has no one now
to fold around;
one brown shoulder covered,
the other bare,

breasts shaping
a tease of bodice,
the crucial tucking in
around the waist.

And I am wrapped
within this task,
breathing warmth
from what has touched your skin.

Spemque metumque inter dubiis
(Hover between hope and fear. Virgil)

When darkness covers us the birds go silent.
Every night this time could be the last.

And when the sun goes, how do we survive
that such an emperor can be made so dull,
who has bathed us as if in gold.

Look out for the glint of a brave star.

Keep your eyes on that black sky
where you expect the moon
and her shining armourer.

Come dawn a black -bird sings of love,
the song- thrush joining in,
and a milkman working to feed his young.

Always a heart of hope feathered with fear.

Morning

I listen to the water in the shower
rain upon the silking of your body.

With face upturned, eyes closed,
your hands busy with soap,

you glance down to the right,
lift your foot to the pumice,
the balance of your breasts askew
like fruit, giving themselves
to the gentle persuasion of weather.

You are unaware of self, of me,
of time; absorbed without reserve
within the set imperatives of ritual.

Stealthily I move away; a hunter,
diverted by the beauty of his prey.

The New Vicar

The ladies of the village gather,
pray to God that he will be a gentleman.

He arrives in a Transit van
and his children pour out;
a little boy pees at the vicarage door,

the wife rushes by with a baby
clamped to her breast,
a toddler under her arm,
his soaked nappy trailing.

She calls out: Hi ladies
do come in. I’ll put the kettle on.

Come Sunday, nearing harvest time,
the Reverend mounts the pulpit:

We will now pray for the harvest,
though I believe a good load of shit
would do a lot more good.

Mrs.Longstaff laughs; Miss Watts,
to the rustle of silk petticoats, departs,
followed by her maid.

That’s my man, smiles God,
The dung too is my work,
warmed on its bed of straw
by the same sun
that heats his woman’s back
as they make hay in the sunshine,
in the meadows of summer.

Gerard Rochford is a widely published poet living in Aberdeen, Scotland. He is a featured poet on the American website Poets Against War. His latest collection is The Holy Family and Other Poems (Koo Press), a meditation on belief and disbelief. A founder member of Dead Good Poets, he convenes monthly poetry readings in Aberdeen. Gerard's poem "My Father's Hand" was selected by the writer, Janice Galloway, as one of the Best 20 Poems of 2006 for the Scottish Poetry Library. He has been a guest reader for Planet Earth Poetry at the Black Stilt, Victoria. B.C. where he has read many times. He is a psychotherapist by trade and has many children and grandchildren.

Dead Good Poets

Koo Press

Email: Gerard Rochford

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