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Keeper of the Creek
ROSY WILSON ————————————————————
Belfast Lapwing
KEEPER OF THE CREEK
ROSY WILSON
Belfast LAPWING
First Published by Lapwing Publications c/o 1, Ballysillan Drive Belfast BT14 8HQ lapwing.poetry@ntlworld.com http://www.lapwingpoetry.com Copyright © Rosy Wilson 2012 Cover Image:’The Wilderness Is Be’ © Paul Haydock-Wilson All rights reserved The author has asserted her/his right under Section 77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Since before 1632 The Greig sept of the MacGregor Clan Has been printing and binding books
Lapwing Publications are printed at Kestrel Print Unit 1, Spectrum Centre Shankill Road Belfast BT13 3AA 028 90 319211 E:kestrelprint@btconnect.com Hand-bound in Belfast at the Winepress Set in Aldine 721 BT
ISBN 978-1-909252-00-4
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to my publisher Dennis Greig and my son Paul Haydock-Wilson for his cover print. Thanks to the editors of the following titles in which some poems had been previously published: The Poetry Bus Alone on a Holiday Weekend and Negative Equity, Leaf Books First Swim of Spring, Little Fish Films The Sky is on Fire.
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CONTENTS A WOMAN’S HEART
..................... ........... ANNAGHMAKERRIG IN MAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OUR WEEK IN THE ARTISTS’ RETREAT . . . . . . . . BUTTERFLIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHURCHYARD AT KILMACREAHY . . . . . . . . . . . CONVERSATION WITH MY GRANDSON . . . . . . . . COUNTING SHEEP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FIRST SWIM OF SPRING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FOR EURI PREDONZANI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FRACTURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ALONE ON A HOLIDAY WEEKEND
IN THE HEAT OF A GOOD FIRE POEMS ARE BORN
........................... .................. MINOR KEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NEGATIVE EQUITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NO MORE RED ROSES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOVEMBER ON THE VICO ROAD . . . . . . . . . . . . . ON THE EDGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SACRED WATER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SAINT CHRISTOPHER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JACK FROST
KEEPER OF THE CREEK
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9 10 11 12 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 28 29 30 31
......................... ........................ THE SKY IS ON FIRE THIS MORNING . . . . . . . . . THESE FELLOWS DON’T EVEN TAKE YOUR PULSE THIRD ANNIVERSARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THREE HAIKU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . TRACING LINES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . TURNER’S WATER COLOURS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . YOU CALL ME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ASH WEDNESDAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOVICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AWAY WITH THE FAIRIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BREEZE OF BEES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FOUNDLING 12052 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IN FLIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LAST RITES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LET US EASTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MOUNTAIN ROCKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PERAMBULATOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WAVES BREAK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I READ TODAY
STAYING ALIVE
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32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51
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KEEPER OF THE CREEK
ROSY WILSON
“for my family, friends and fellow poets�
Rosy Wilson
A WOMAN’S HEART
Can music mend a woman’s heart? I choose old tunes I hope will soothe my wakeful hours, John Williams on guitar plays Bach, Leonard Cohen calls like a bird on a wire as early birds arrive on bedroom window sill. Suzanne takes me down to the edge of a river I follow along margins of the strand. On my walkman Ella plays the blues but rain still falls from grey skies onto grey stones. Nat King Cole croons, the Marys ask again and again did I ever tell you that I love you and answer, only a woman, only a woman, only a woman’s heart can know.
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Keeper of the Creek
ALONE ON A HOLIDAY WEEKEND
as I curve around Bray Head the harbour wrinkles crimson but on Greystones beach blue waves beat the shoreline where I swim in; spirals turquoise and green as a silk kimono invite me into their circle, nearby the dark head of one seal breaks the surface, surveys our scene submerges. I emerge run the length of the strand on shells and soft sand.
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Rosy Wilson
ANNAGHMAKERRIG IN MAY
a rhododendron tree sheds pink petals, rain-broken a Turkish carpet for tired feet I stretch and breathe two swallows rest on the eave swoop in synchronicity drawn towards water’s magnetic field I slip into the lake float under hawthorn blossom water sparkles, I shiver seven swans swim over one rests on the edge under the cloud-free sky my friend practises tai-chi by a locked boat house
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Keeper of the Creek
OUR WEEK IN THE ARTISTS’ RETREAT
For one week this house becomes our family’s place of renewal family of artists who gather at the wooden refectory table every evening at seven, share a spread of conversation, home-cooked dinners, a wood-burning stove at our backs before us the night’s entertainment. Clare takes her guitar from the case plucks a few strings, tells stories invites us all to her house, back of beyonds in some wild part of Kerry where a fat, four-timing fisherman lover knocks at the door at four in the morning he comes with a keep-at-arms length warning then she plays, sings blues and sean nós blows us away with her sweetness of voice strengths of the lyrics, we follow the heron home. I read how love is my source, now I hug empty air my hare has loped over the edge, heron has flown.
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Rosy Wilson
A poet of Clones, close friend of a decade tells poems she’s composed, love of late husband another writes of the chocolate she craves after cutting her man off on the telephone. All the time scrabble tiles are turned, words invented and scored. In my room, so large my cottage would nearly fit in, I ready for bed, look again at the paintings of trees, some portraits left here by Guthrie and artists who stayed sit at my spacious oak desk where I’ve laid notebooks, netbook, library books of poems this is my room for the week and I don’t want to leave, I wake as rain falls into the lake where we swim.
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Keeper of the Creek
BUTTERFLIES
are scarce this summer but on my mourning walk between the hills I see some flutter singly and in pairs among long grasses low gorse, purple heather
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Rosy Wilson
CHURCHYARD AT KILMACREAHY
Still struggling to emerge from the dark centre of February we take slow steps up the grassy path of a sea-facing cemetery leave the garden where I pushed a green wheelbarrow for you work to recover the patterns of our lives before we buried you last February but crashing Atlantic tides pull us on their undertow back to your cemetery.
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Keeper of the Creek
CONVERSATION WITH MY GRANDSON
You know I watched Shaun the Sheep with Granpa on his hospice bed threw earth on his coffin beside you in the graveyard by the Atlantic Sea you said he’d love the view seabirds crying overhead but I said no he was dead. Granny, will you go soon? I wonder about this question, No, I don’t think so, I say good you’ll die of old age then it’s the right way.
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Rosy Wilson
COUNTING SHEEP
When I rise early this morning rub sleep from my eyes I can hardly believe the sight of six full-fleeced, dirty-white sheep grazing hydrangeas in my front garden I stumble in their midst they spread out hither and thither end up in a run down the lane sun paints silver linings in fleece-grey, sheep-shaped clouds.
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Keeper of the Creek
FIRST SWIM OF SPRING
11 April 2010
Two quick dips in numb cold sea snow on hills a clear blue day. I swim to celebrate our wedding anniversary second since the crab carried you away.
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Rosy Wilson
FOR EURI PREDONZANI
I picture you a young man, a part of Tito’s Partisan Army fighting Fascists in mountains of the old Yugoslavia read your journal your emigrant journey from Italy to Australia in search of work after the war with a young wife, a baby son. I meet you in Genova teacher and artist working to make ends meet put bread on the table you open your home to me I share a room with your daughter, learn your stories told with laughter, follow your commitment to pursue an elusive left wing politic and watch you doing homework with grandchildren, taking care of their learning, their characters they grow in your example as I have done. I reference you in my life’s work your honesty my tuning fork your politics my standard bearer your humour my healing.
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Keeper of the Creek
FRACTURES
My Italian friend gives me an oval ceramic plaque Casa della Nonna are the words laced with yellow flowers, green leaves I keep it on my mantel children come and go to Granny’s cottage one evening it falls breaks in three places my son glues it together if only other cracks were so neatly mended.
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Rosy Wilson
IN THE HEAT OF A GOOD FIRE POEMS ARE BORN
First prepare the bonfire lay dry sticks, used boxes torn in strips, the week’s newspapers news of bail-outs, bond-holders ready for burning. Next pile on cuttings pruned with secateurs from briars and roses branches lopped from overhanging trees and all the garden rubbish of the year covered with autumn leaves. Now is the time to set the pyre alight, strike matches till it catches, sparks, crackles, orange flames leap into the ether leave it burn. Return indoors to notebook netbook, set a fire in the grate of your mind, bright and hot as the conflagration out the back let words burn paper, set the screen alight.
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Keeper of the Creek
JACK FROST
I wake the lawn is white again ice crystals lanes red lights fringe blue sky fire up lines of Bray Head birds perch on rose twigs wait on frosted fences, sills I fill their dish with muesli, oats chopped nuts, apricots a flurry robins, fluffy blue tits every garden bird gather help themselves fly off but not too far I stir oat porridge chop in grapes, apricots wait for family to fly in from afar 22
Rosy Wilson
KEEPER OF THE CREEK
Your home was near enough your nursery school touched the shore now you use silted waters a resource. Intaglio artist you lay copper plates in Deptford Creek leave them to weather over winter weeks withdraw them, study accretions, water-weed, mud traces, specks of grit, in spring element you etch earth colours, complete large gallery prints. You leave the Creek, hand over keys revisit Irish lore, soft-ground studies of sea and landscape, Wicklow Hills, the Burren, striated Cliffs of Moher.
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Keeper of the Creek
MINOR KEY
a patch of blue sky measure of sailor’s trousers colour of your shirt or one sea-blue eye your other, hazel, looks another way we play the blues Billie, Louis, Ella love and tears fall as blue voices rise, cross over pitch harsh tones a turquoise veil hangs between your kisses and mine blue butterflies
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Rosy Wilson
NEGATIVE EQUITY
Blackbirds, robins, coal tits watch me watching them through double-glazed windows of my breakfast porch all of us pecking crumbs fallen from the rich man’s table rich man who broke the bank flashes his gold rollex two magpies, birds on a wire, keep watch.
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Keeper of the Creek
NO MORE RED ROSES
Valentine’s morning, waking early I listen to love songs on the radio, Van Morrison’s did I ever tell you that I love you. Years ago a girl friend played Frankie Armstrong’s song, bring no more red roses, no more red roses for me. Carol Ann writes her poem Valentine, ‘not a red rose or a satin heart I give you an onion, it is a moon wrapped in brown paper’ its platinum globe shrinks to a wedding ring. On the radio I hear a headline, forget the roses cook the dinner. Our first date, Valentine’s night 1966, The Pilgrims, Canterbury, for afters your bedsitter, strewn clothes and architect student’s drawings. This morning, two years after we buried you near Liscannor on the Atlantic shore, days after we launched my book of poems in your memory, I ask not for
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Rosy Wilson
red roses that you never gave me, satin hearts I waited for in vain nor even onions for the dinner you often cooked but that you watch out for our children as they enter middle age, grandchildren growing strong and smart for me a whole heart.
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Keeper of the Creek
NOVEMBER ON THE VICO ROAD
A dense Scots pine sheds drizzle and old cones puffs of cloud line up along Bray Head grey hills, grey sky, grey sea close in on a terrace where nasturtiums straggle on a shed where women struggle with poems all old enough to know better.
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Rosy Wilson
ON THE EDGE
A splinter can become a sliver fatten into a wedge I feel the tap, tap, tap of a silver mallet tapping into my head I need to grasp the wood in forefinger and thumb pull it out of my temple or doctors will take over wheel in tables of tablets fix electrodes to my forehead.
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Keeper of the Creek
SACRED WATER
All life begins in water Sumerian word for sea is mar the same as womb a is water also sperm conception and generation we are borne, born in water. Earth Goddess Annahita was created from seminal fluid flowing from the place where watery stream surrounding the earth meets the stars. Water is earth’s life blood rivers course down mountains through valleys are arteries and veins allowing blood to stream through the body. In the end myths have us crossing rivers to the afterlife in West Africa the dead are carried over three rivers laid out in canoes for the voyage. Our grave is settled in an ancient churchyard bordering the Atlantic Ocean.
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Rosy Wilson
SAINT CHRISTOPHER
In a stained glass window Christopher, crimson tunic and cap, carries a white-dressed boy on his back a gold halo crowns the child’s head. The man leans on a wooden staff, makes his way over the river weight of his rider ever greater cares of the world on his shoulders. A light green fish leaps from turquoise water into Jesus’ left hand, with his right he baptises the man Christ-bearer, patron of travellers and those who carry loads, in memory of their journey together. A pope decreed the story apocryphal, mythological, St Christopher medals no longer make journeys safer.
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Keeper of the Creek
I READ TODAY
serenity is not having what we want it’s wanting what we have. Morning spreads blue sky bunked with duvets of cloud, Bray Head, a lumpy green bolster, slopes into the harbour a constant in the landscape viewed from my white cottage where spring flowers yellow the garden, robin red breasts blue tits share breakfast. Today I meet my friend in the cafe, all sorts of talk over cups of coffee then swim lengths in Bray pool stretch old limbs on cedar wood slats in the sauna. This is what I have, the small canvas on which I write colours of serenity.
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Rosy Wilson
STAYING ALIVE
‘is a book that leaves those who have read or heard a poem from it feeling less alone and more alive.’ John Berger
When my mother remarries, plans to leave our family home, live in the Sudan she says to her mother, I hope you won’t be lonely when I’ve gone. Gran answers, Don’t worry dear, I never feel alone, my poets are always with me. She knows Milton, Wordsworth, the Psalms, Shakespeare’s speeches and sonnets off by heart recites them round the house, well-chosen quotations for every occasion, compares my mother’s beauty with a summer day, I am a rosebud set in little wilful thorns for my sister a soft low voice is excellent in women, Gran has no answer to my brother’s vulgar taunts. I follow her example, speaking the Bard’s words, ‘Who will believe my verse in time to come?’ Now I’ve reached the age she was then, I forget words but these mornings, as sun rises on Bray Head, I open Staying Alive, read some poems, copy a few into my own notebook, remember with thanks the bi-polar poet who gifted me this anthology during days we were both resident in a mental hospital, sensing the mad reverberations of that place.
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Keeper of the Creek
THE SKY IS ON FIRE THIS MORNING
the sun a scarlet full moon hung a metre above the horizon when I wake at five with those dreams, dreams that I smother down under a blue, crumpled duck-down duvet. Apricot roses burn like flames ignited by fire in the sky, late petals of wild orange poppies glow as they fade. Red sky of morning, shepherds’ warning. I snuggle alone on my futon, husband of forty-five years lies buried, the breadth of a country between us, in a double bed on the western shore. Sea surfers crest falling waves, dolphins leap, click, swim without effort, seabirds screech, crabs creep under stones as he waits for my passing, burial blessing, me dug in beside him, no longer alone.
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Rosy Wilson
THESE FELLOWS DON’T EVEN TAKE YOUR PULSE
in memory of John McCarthy, Founder of Mad Pride
They eye you across a table, on a scale of 1-10 how sad are you? as if you can give marks for sadness although you want to please them or they’ll take you in force-feed you tablets even prescribe ECT, electric currents pass through the brain to bring you back to their normality your mind wiped clean. What do they know of brain chemistry, it can’t be measured, analysed but psychiatrists think it can be diagnosed - these fellows don’t even take your pulse.
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Keeper of the Creek
THIRD ANNIVERSARY
He was taken early in the year before swallows returned, red arrow heads on black feathers. Sisters together take steps towards his Mass talk about widowhood walk past blackbirds on the road.
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Rosy Wilson
THREE HAIKU
she floats from my dream enfolds me, seven kisses little blue butterflies
left-over roses apricot, crimson, blossom winter dead-heads, thorns
sow your garden with heartsease, love-in-idleness love’s purple wound
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Keeper of the Creek
TRACING LINES
We’d call ourselves mongrels, always on the margins of any social groupings we seek to merge in. Our names narrate origins O’Flanagan, Morreau, Shaw, Lowensberg changed to Law I marry Scottish, Welsh. Our children grow up South East London kids many cultures people their school curriculum. Our son’s wife is Congolese, three grandsons offer us rewards and colours of their inheritance.
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Rosy Wilson
TURNER’S WATER COLOURS
Legacy to Irish National Gallery are only displayed once a year in February, when the light is right to preserve the texture, colours, paintwork of these treasures. His ‘Shakespeare’s Cliff’ rises from swirling sea, blue-green waves circle on a winter day. On these cliffs last scenes of Lear play out, three daughters killed the old King driven mad, his Fool, his best friend, hanged. Turner’s scene is quiet, recollected. Is he imagining the aftermath, hearing echoes of howl, howl, howl as he executes his water colour.
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Keeper of the Creek
YOU CALL ME
You call me every evening at sundown before you pull the cork out of the bottle pour a glass, prepare to chop red onions tell me all the makings of your supper who passed the gate on tractors or called in what the story is about your neighbours where the funerals are, which parishes who goes to the pub, the tunes, the craic how many blackbirds pecking in the garden above all when the swallows come and leave but then a caustic note alters the tone You should be with me, this is where we live. It was late when at last I came, seven months before you passed away.
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Rosy Wilson
ASH WEDNESDAY
Lending an ear to Lent again no ashes darken my forehead I ask friends to dinner, free-range chicken, avocados, red wine we’ve given up the fast we’re living in the now, not raking over coals imagining hell or bliss. Spring celebrates recreation, nature’s present; we breathe each breath in mindfulness. Why would Jesus look for us to mortify our flesh, isn’t every day suffering sufficient.
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Keeper of the Creek
NOVICE
She models a bowl presses a slab of clay with careworn thumbs turns it round and round in the cracked cradle of aged hands, pours in thought prayers love of children grandchildren. The healing potter takes her bowl raises it like a priest holding a chalice senses energy along body lines from heart to head but not grounded. The woman forms her intentions moulding clay in her image he fires the figure hard-glazes sea-blue counsels her to hold her shining ceramic, touch the energy.
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Rosy Wilson
AWAY WITH THE FAIRIES
On the wild west coast where Atlantic winds blow almost constant rain leprechauns huddle in frieze coats hiding red jackets laced with gold, bold sprites she didn’t recognise them on the road these sons of bad spirits mated with degenerate fairies. They snatch her as she drives the cattle, carry her to their fort of twisted blackthorn trees, a crown of thorns tangles her brow, hooded crows flock, caw, curse, fly her the turbulent way to cloud-cuckoo land. Aer Arann would be reluctant to pilot those cliffs, cross-currents, land on clints and grikes, navigate granite boulders of the mind.
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Keeper of the Creek
BREEZE OF BEES
my shower of pink hebe overhangs the lane a bumble bee buzzes on every flower
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Rosy Wilson
FOUNDLING 12052
Someone loved you once my little girl to draw a tulip for you, weave a cloth of creamy linen drawn from hard-pulled flax embroider it with sprigs of thyme and diamonds
then wrap you in soft folds, lay you down baptised with mother’s tears on convent steps, herself, a slip of a girl, she leaves you there for strangers better able to take care
or so they say. I note the day you enter 18 March, 1750, a time that lies between St Patrick’s and St Joseph’s Days, strong saints to mind you little girl living in the centre.
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Keeper of the Creek
IN FLIGHT
My mobile rings, you’re flying into Shannon, will I come over keep you company, I lock my doors, set out, the sun is going down. Morning breaks, we make our way to seaside cemetery where daffodils, transplanted from his garden, flower the grave, dig in heathers at the head, keep watch on the Atlantic shore; a grebe flies down, shares our vigil for over half an hour, bears your father’s spirit back to earth.
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Rosy Wilson
LAST RITES
Bury me under the weeping willow green leaves tickle my wrinkled brow a tree we planted on the shallows our children dancing in and around.
Bury me under the weeping willow stretch branches so they brush the ground, sweep sandy soil where daffodils yellow, colours of early crocus are found.
Bury me under the weeping willow dig my grave in a grassy grove, build a mound of earth for my pillow, remember me with words of love.
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Keeper of the Creek
LET US EASTER…
Our druid priest of Liscannor tears up sheets of the Clare Champion passes them to parishioners who share the news we each carry a piece outside where a fire burns in the brazier throw shreds, each one a thorn or a sin, into the flames a women’s chorus leads us in song Be Thou my Vision, Lord of the Dance, sun sets crimson in Atlantic sky we light candles in the embers the alter is dressed, cascades of green coloured with wild flowers gathered on hedgerows, verges, Paddy Nestor’s Easter garden lit by our candles. With the Paschal candle our Celtic Father blesses water, sprinkles the congregation we chant baptismal promises although I wonder whether, in good faith, I can still make those promises but, borne up by neighbours, the community, the evening that’s in it hope of renewal, resurrection, my voice mingles with others renouncing the devil, all his works wherever, whoever he may be. 48
Rosy Wilson
MOUNTAIN ROCKS
Under mid-day sun on sheep-shorn Carraigoona I breathe in patterns of heather coconut smells of gorse, hold stones named for parents gone on journeys long before, our father who died the year outbreak of war was sure, our mother left with little ones to rear our stepfather, a Colditz prisoner of war, returned to this country as husbandman, organic Wexford farmer. I kneel, press my ear to the mountainside hear their voices, deer steps, ebbing tide.
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Keeper of the Creek
PERAMBULATOR
The old black pram capacious, riding high carried three babies before it was passed on for ours. In an old-fashioned way we lay our first-born, snuggled in a yellow cocoon, to sleep in the back garden. When the second arrives there’s room for both for a while they lie there, top to toe, smiling at trees, the cat, each other. The old black pram, our vehicle in those lean London years, holds up well; our four children take turns, ride safely, sleep there. In the end we donate it to run in a local pram race organised as a fund raiser for a children’s hospice.
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Rosy Wilson
WAVES BREAK
I
have resisted revisiting this place
graves spread random under
grass
gravel Liscannor stone
almost as far as the Atlantic shore
gannets fly over from the Cliffs of Moher
I
scan spaces the lack of you
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Keeper of the Creek
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L A P W I N G PUB L I C A T I O N S
ROSY WILSON
Rosy Wilson grew up in Dublin and was a lecturer in London for forty years. She now lives in the Wicklow Hills, volunteers at Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation and is an active member of Amnesty International. She was a Poetry Ireland Introduction poet in 2000 and her poems are published in magazines and anthologies including The SHOp, the Stinging Fly, The Poetry Bus and The Thursday Book. Keeper of the Creek is her third collection.
“This poet’s gift of imagination and insight draws us in, causes us to breathe with synchronicity, to share connversation, keep her secrets. The honesty of her allegorical words, inlaid with love, is a testament to the use of language in her poetry.” Carol Boland
The Lapwing is a bird, in Irish lore - so it has been written indicative of hope. Printed by Kestrel Print Hand-bound at the Winepress, Ireland ISBN 978-1-909252-00-4 £10.00