Only red in
your dread rimmed
sleepless eyes
darting over freezing streets
swooping through derilict
buildings frantic
calling all the while
for your nestling
But
The roads that grew you
will not give up their secret
familiars fail you now
as another night falls
casting long shadows over
an empty house where
a small, vacant chair
whose arms bear
little rings of milk
stains sits
dawn finds
your broken chick
a bloody valentine
lying in a nest
of painted leaves
Face, this is stirring, beautiful and very sad. The imagery is simply stunning. It has left a gnawing hollow feeling in my chest…
Thank you so much myspoken. It was written in response to a gnawing feeling in my chest: it’s shortly to be the anniversary of an awful tragedy which happened in this country 20 years ago and has never left me…you are so intuitive and full of heart…
Wow. You don’t come along very often Mrs W, but when you do you do so well.
I love the way you make things obvious without saying them – you show don’t tell brilliantly which is fundamental to poetry for me.
Hard to believe it’s been 20years since an event which, for me, marks the beginning of a new type of crime in the world. This is a very sad and moving epitaph to that – very well written.
RoS
Thanks panda. I guess you’ve figured what I’m writing about. It was hard because I sometimes feel I don’t have the right to try and express a tragedy of this magnitude: it wasn’t personally mine after all. But as a human and a mother, it affected me so much. Thanks for reading. It’s good to be back.
The magnitude came from a sick press, the reality was a very personal, private tragedy. As with individuals, the harm would come from not speaking, from suppressing our feelings – for me anyway.
I remember this, as well. Beautifully done.
Thanks D’Arty…It’s a hard thing to write about but I had to try.
I sadly do not know of what you are writing, however your words captured me Ace, excellent. x
Thank you my lovely…x