Of rain, relentless
memories drumming on my taut skin
running in gurgling rivulets, seeking
deep subterranean places
dark water, far beneath my groundsheet.
A turf-torn guy-rope
relic of a stormy past wound on itself,
spent, forgot, coiled without tension
white as a stripped nerve.
With intent I listen
there is no rhythm in the rain, no
reason or cónfine. I am choosing
storm-surviving, to hear my skin
streaming, streaming, streaming.
2012 © Andie Davidson
When the bearing down begins,
is this courage for the passing through—
or bravery for the inheritance of blood?
Or is it the terror of tearing,
expulsion of not belonging—
the urging to be freed?
And this presence in my belly,
this yearning to contain and hold—
does it not consider pain or wound?
Do not admire the episiotomy
any more than some placental pleasure—
birth is not courage. It’s guts.
2012 © Andie Davidson
Radio carols familiar, smooth
words I cannot sing
a child safe song long lost
still played round and round
my wordless trumpet silent
since the final concert.
Another phlap on the mat
card-hope disappointed
by a Christmas Eve bill
an endless account, year around
filling the void of wordless friends
the list-recipients of my robin.
Tomorrow my son will annoy
his sister with rock and metal
compilations of his Christmas
his mother tolerant, the boyfriend
caught in a new family, the new
Christmas male, a word I cannot think.
Crackers will snap their jest
with an absent author and
a missing humour, an uncrowned
head of table, ambiguous not vacant
filled by silence, the last concert
forgotten as smooth carols.
Robin lost his red breast,
the unfamiliar call to friends
recognised by a few far away
as the fleeting, through-the-window
not-for-Christmas companion
the open bill, the silent carol.
2012 © Andie Davidson
I want this card filled.
I want it empty. Just my name.
A Christmas Valentine.
My heart. In a folded page.
However delicate this filigree
this silver, iron or gold –
however fine and beautiful this glass,
its colours making sunlight speak –
however fleet and bright this flute
edging silver in sibilant song –
you shall not see or feel the fire,
the furnace finding them from stone.
Their faces and voices all felt fair,
warm in a way their cold touch cannot tell
set from white heat, bled to life,
beaten, drawn and mastered
into taut treasures that tell
stories, songs and longings
of long, long ago. Ore and wonder
as old as their ancestral home.
Trauma and high energy are
the price of simple things
the rocks that make our hills,
crumbled, melted into light.
2011 © Andie Davidson