Day 26 (for Terri): On the blank page I read

my parents' lost words: my mother's diaries that she threw away a few years ago, which she'd written every day since she was single, before my brother and I were born; the letters my father hasn't written; the things both my parents haven't managed to say; the secret fears they've told me when drunk or nearly told me sober and pretended after that they never said; the things I can't tell them

my brother's voice before it broke.  With my ear to the page I hear the tapes we made and recorded over.  I hear him shouting, 'Ambush!' as he jumps down from his oak tree in the Back Field and runs at me, a hogweed sword in his hand

my grandparents' and great-grandparents' stories; the love letters they cherished, burned or forgot about; the words they buried, choked on, whispered into reeds or holes in trees, or told the wind; the spidery or arabesque script of my ancestors back to the first boy who was taught to write; and before that, the timbre of their voices, talking, singing, crying, snoring; their laughter; their infant screams; their last breaths; the ticks and chimes of their clocks and watches; the sounds of their houses: doors banging, dogs barking, footsteps and the squeals of gates.

Days 30 & 31: Terminus; a Bulb, a Promise.

Illustration to Colin Hawkins' Witches

Because endings are difficult.

Because it's hard to end without beginning again.

In September I'll turn forty.  I should have evolved beyond caring, but I haven't.  I should be philosophical about it, say something positive about wisdom and self-knowledge and how I'm looking forward to the next enriching phase of my life, but I'm not.  I hate feeling unattractive.  I hate worrying that what I wear might be muttonish.  I hate that my hair has lost its shine and my skin's weathering.  I'm dreading my friends asking me how it feels to be forty.  The worst of it is of course that in a few years I'll look wistfully on this as my youth.  I'm afraid of illness, ageing and death, my own and that of the people and animals I love.  2011 was a year of shocks and hard lessons and it's left me scared of what might happen next.  I have lost too much, as have many of my friends and family; it has to stop.
 
However, it's traditional to say something positive at this time of year, so I'll tell you that I'm working on a new sequence, based on one of the Reverb prompts.  There's a patch of grass in my imaginary garden that's covered with the snouts of emerging poems.   I have a vague idea of some of their varieties and colours, but they'll probably still surprise me.

We keep growing, don't we.  That's one thing good thing about getting older.

I'm taking some time off public writing and won't publish anything here for a while.  Thank you for reading my posts and for your comments.  I hope 2012 comes kindly to you.

Day 29: The Last Toast.

 Illustration to Colin Hawkins' Witches

If only it were. We clink glasses again: 'Happy This.  Happy That.'  I take a gulp and the old woman with red eyes and hair like a winter tree climbs off my shoulders and retreats upstairs, muttering as she goes. 

She'll be waiting for me later, at three or four in the morning. She'll climb on my chest, spit in my face and spend the rest of the night pulling at my fingers and telling me I need to change my ways. 

Day 28: Five Curses

Illustration to Colin Hawkins' Witches

They come too fast for you to stop them, too fast to notice.  They appear at first like stars falling but they aren't stars and they have no light of their own.  They are formed of the new elements: heart, lungs, feet, hands and head.

The Curse of the Heart makes you spit fire when you should be singing.  It scratches your belly and climbs out of your mouth when you're walking, scorching the ground and causing forest fires.  It has scales and wings and can tear out your throat with one bite.

The Curse of the Lungs makes you wheeze.  It breathes your air, starving you of oxygen and making you faint. It is grey, flaccid spongy.  It talks in a whisper, usually about its looming death and last wishes, and has clammy hands. 

The Curse of the Feet is all blisters.  It flaps as it walks and parts of it peel off.  It weeps a lot.  It is sticky to the touch.  It follows you about, pleading for you to slow down, but if you wait for it it will never quite catch up: it will twist a knee or an ankle and fall over, writhing and moaning with its arms waving in the air.

The Curse of the Hands has teeth.  Don't stroke it.  It keeps its back to the wall at all times, and tries to stay in corners, snarling at passers by.  You can poke it with a stick or throw it a sandwich.

The Curse of the Head splits wood for a living.  It carries an axe at all times and can chop down trees with three blows.  It kicks over boulders.  It will kick you in the belly if you let it.  Its nose runs often and its eyes are sore and dry.  It bumps into corners and trips over doorsteps.  You can push it over, but you must be fast and plan your getaway meticulously.

Day 27: Five Blessings

A morning in the garden, cutting back last season's herbaceous plants and chopping brambles; one of the serene days between Christmas and New Year when there's nothing pressing and you can drift from breakfast to bedtime.  The air was mild and full of early spring and bird song.  I watched Hellebore zip up and down the maple tree, and pounce on the soil from a plant pot I'd just emptied.  When I came inside Samuel was curled on the bed, sleeping off another late night.

Day 23: Shucking the Oyster

Photograph by Tony Sutton

Anything but the oyster!

Roll on the days of normal work.

I'm sick of not hitting the mark, 

not getting the knife into the hinge,

not twisting at the proper point.  

Roll on the end of hurrying,

of cuts, splashes, shell shards

for nothing more than

a plate of plates,

of winter rock pools: 

salt-water, jelly and grit.

Day 22: Speaking in Code

With my hand against my mouth I speak riddles
you wouldn't want to understand.  I whisper
so fast it's like a cricket, like a scratch,
like a car's gears grinding, like my car radio
when Cherubino was singing in and out of signal
and I got it: two notes, grind, one note, grind.
With my hand against my mouth I can gurgle.