Kelwyn Sole
I don’t much value the confessional:
could tell you a few stories, sitting here,
but the clink of tin as my garden’s can
of suet swings, marauded by squirrels,
confounds me
until I hazard to point
out only what you’ve not noticed but
envelops us: of the birds now bereft
of their suet, calling in distress; of flies
wringing their hands for mercy; of slug
and snail journeys seldom finished; of
fearful lizards never at ease, frantic
for a sudden hiding place to gape
ensorcelled into stone;
of ancient
rotting trees, so knotted they no longer
can find ways to ingratiate themselves
with any soil’s embrace or gale’s bluster.
I want to speak for some ugly creatures -
their recurring droughts of fulfilment as
they circle, and wish to worry to the final
bone, the carcase of their grievances.
… When may insight nimble up to us
delicate as a spider’s tensile weaving
yet strong enough to keep the touch
between us, if only for a moment?
– a speaking out that’s undistracted,
a labour truespun from the belly,
part of an earth that’s fruiting –
I want to be
a citizen of
that country
not retreat indoors each dusk
to counterfeits of light in dimmed rooms
where I fake comfort by rifling the pockets
of the dead for their words, yet end up
always finding
my vigil ends
with the dogma
of those tongues
which promise just a swarming
back to root out more myths
and feast on them, the carrion
of our history.
Featured on 24 June 2021
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