‘bit the trees leafless

the grasses lushless;

……chilled bays, chilled pools

struck seashores rigid’ Kalevala: 30

 

What I remember

 

is the flat of your body. No muscles, no breath.

Your eyes closed, face disappointed.

I lay on top of you, on our black sofa;

 

the same place I’d cried fourteen years before

when we entered this house.

 

In the coffin, you are stiffer.

Cuts round your neck, your mouth twisted.

Our daughter runs from the room.

In yoga I see a pond, green and murky,

you swimming;

But what I remember is my first award,

 

us at a New Year’s Eve party. You grinning,

telling everyone. A woman with dementia asks me

again and again ‘And what is it you do?’

 

 

‘Who’ll now lead us to water

go with us to the river?’

Kalevala : 24

 

Stellar Maris

 

Mary’s statue reaches arms across the harbour

Where young boys dive into clear water

flecked with diesel drops. The ferry cuts through

 

The Narrows, lets its side down as it nears shore.

Cars start up. Two men in caps at the Cuan Arms

discuss Sean, who hasn’t been over

 

for twenty years, but is just after getting back.

Hot whiskey slides down easy in November

when the sea mist rolls in and the long call

 

of the lifeboat breaks into your sleep. Inspectors

from England say the boat paint is toxic

to fish. Fungicides root, bed deep. This north

 

we’re not without consequence. On clear nights

the Milky Way is visible, and a galaxy of stars;

Calisto and Cassiopeia. The Dog Star. The Plough

 

and at St Brigit’s Well, rags on a hawthorn bush, alders,

scribbled wishes. Please God cure her,

Jesus grant my plea. In the cairns, boulders

 

cover stalagmites. Nitrates leach into the water

table. Fossils on the beach. On the shore

uprooted stones, people mumbling a prayer

say he went quick at the end, how people ought to.

 

 

The River

‘And Walkers’ Crisps meant everything to him’

Pronounce ‘ Walker’ with a ‘v’. Throw back the head.

Have his son tell the story; ‘That night we drank many beers.

We walked and walked, and sat by the Thames. My father,

he has never seen a river that in the morning flowed one way.

And in the evening another. My father, he is amazed at such things.

I think everything in England is mixed up together for him –

London , the Walkers crisps, the many beers, the river

that in the morning flows one way and in the evening another’.

 

 

THE FULL TEXT OF KATH'S PIECE IS AVAILABLE IN THE INTERLAND ANTHOLOGY 'SIX STEPS UNDER WATER' PLEASE CLICK ON THE BOOK TO BUY