One for sorrow, two for joy
The news arrived as we knew it would
but the sound sat strange on our tongues
and buzzed at our freckled ears
we wondered-
is it a simple thing?
when solid flesh and fragile bone
is returned to the
cigar-scented soil
from which it came.
I have tasted that earth,
scooped it into my mouth
in grateful handfuls,
until my belly was rounded by its weight
laying myself gently down
to reach an ear to the whispers of the worms
spreading gossip with the trees.
I may not believe in heaven or hell
but I do know
that a heart still beats once it leaves the body,
that the tide must go out twice a day
and that one night, the old oak
fell so gently
that not even the magpie stirred,
waking up the next morning
somewhat surprised
at this change of circumstance.
Now the worms are coiling and rolling
between broken root and shoot
and the lazy bluebells
lol their speckled heads indifferently
and as the light drags its long fingers
across the cool damp grass,
somewhere
(many miles from here)
the swallows have begun
to come home.
2026
Three kinds of daughters
We’ve been here for a while now
in the place where thoughts fall
from sleeping cliffs and
new life rests in
the in-between
she gazes softly,
a thumbnail beyond the curve
as my new lungs pause
for breath
how strange it is
we were once housed in the same body.
three nesting dolls
moving to one pulse
each with a future we knew not
and like her mother did before
in her own original way,
as Gaia’s moth presses her wings
to the horizon
she waits for my pin to still
its tired rolling head,
gathers her audience
and starts
to sing.
2026
