Breathing Time

Breathing Time

Tempo para Respirar - an installation by Maria Nepomuceno at the Sunley Gallery, Turner Contemporary, Margate

My feet lie like two blue fish on a coil of blue rope,

as if some fisherman’s dragged them from the turbid

sea outside. I think of standing in the blue volcano,

letting myself  be swept  away in the lava of blue beads.

Instead, I sit and breathe, let part of me float skyward

to rest in the empty chair swaying somewhere towards

heaven.  We will all leave empty chairs on earth.  A plant

made of rope climbs the wall of my memories. 

The Mexican hats are not mine, although I remember

someone  wearing one once. Perhaps I’ll lie in the red hammock,

take my first breaths again in the embrace of its stripey vulva,

standing on its emphatic  red elephant’s foot.  Yes,

I’ll spend time breathing there, just as I’m breathing

here now, writing this,  then I’ll leave, everything,

never having stood, in the blue volcano, what remains

of my breath will hang somewhere near an empty chair.

Questions for the heart

Where do you live

that you beat your wings against bars that surround you
resist tethers that tie you? 

Where would you fly
if the window were open to sheets of blue and scatters of stars
the door key just there in the lock?

What’s running through you
so quickly you don’t want to keep it,
send it packing with such beating of drums?

 

How would it be to hold it,
cherish it, nourish it,
let it stay as a guest in your four sweet rooms?

Heart, what do you love?
Really love?

Morning


I got up too late for Venus
but last night’s sky made me gasp

as the dog and I made our midnight

circuit of the Crescent under the half moon -

 

dew soaked my shoes this morning

on the high hill overlooking Canterbury,

the cathedral misty in the deep bowl

of the surrounding Downs,

 

a robin singing insistently,

a distant sounds of bells.

Way to Go

Time again
months again
weeks again
days again
begin again
begin, begin
begin, begin

Time

Path

I walked this path
before the froth
of wild garlic, the swell
of bluebells

I walked it before
the trees were in leaf,
when the rain
rendered it black and sodden

I walked it over and over
in its brief dappled weeks
of April loveliness,
eztravaganza of early sun

now I'm leaving again,
the flowers have gone over,
the canopy of leaves
is dense and green -

yes, I can come back anytime
the path will still be there, where I have been..

Looking Forward

Address

I have a parcel for ee my luvverr
said the delivery man on my doorstep

I admired his accent, asked which bit
of Cornwall he came from - No more
n'undred yards from ere my luvver

He said, Dunno bout ee but no way
I could live anywhere other -

I didn't say he was right.  I didn't
say there were ways and faraway places
where living could, theoretically, be done.

Looking Back

Poetry Lunch on the Helford


for Penny and Caroline

Be good, said the man to his beagle
Be quiet, said the woman to the seagull

Move, said the wind to the water
Stay, say the roses to the old wall

Walk, said my mind to my feet
Come, said the path, stop, said the fence

Remember, say the poems, remember, remember
Listen, says the wind hearing our voices

Leave, says the boat
Let them go, says the wind, moving away

Stay, say the roses on the cottage wall
Hush, says the water to the wind

Blue, green and black says the sky to the river
and all this time, the good beagle said nothing at all.

drafted 15th September 2010

New Year's Day 2011

Three Times Two, MMXI

In our Christmas photo -
my mother, aunt, sister, neices
four women, two small girls,
two of us bleeding with the moon

Three of us fair-haired, three dark –
all our days moving in and out of darkness -
love lighting our faces on this day
in the winter dark, the six of us

look into the light of this moment
that flickered and disappeard
like the Christmas candles, also
gone, also kept from darkness
in a Christmas photo.

Victoria Field