the size of a treat
for a hedge mouse
whose scampering feet
and tiny twitter and whistle
drew enquiring ears and
eager eyes between the leaves.
The wonder of a small world
so different from the miles
in our heavy feet each day.
A new experience of here and there
of running with seeds –
and wild strawberries.
2011 © Andie Davidson
Love is a long word
made light as like,
and weighty as the world.
It is a four-letter word
illicit as you like,
if spoken as stolen or sold.
Unconditionally rare,
short and light
as a hook on a lifeline.
Long as a memory,
like a surprise
it is never – expected.
Light as the web that it is,
catching tears
like mist in a lonely hour.
Powerful as death
and long as life,
shortened to nothing by … but.
That’s why your love
is what you mean –
and can never be asked for.
2012 © Andie Davidson
See also: Food for love
In spring 2011, a burial was unearthed, of a male interred as a female, and was promptly billed by the press as ‘WTF? First Gay Caveman!’. In all likelihood the person was transgendered, accepted, even revered as in so many ancestral cultures.
The 1968 Prague Spring was a period of rapid political liberalisation . . .
Five thousand years, layering
this on that, of change on chance
to be dug, this day, these
crouched bones face – respected
male bones placed, inflected
by pots, not knives – east
away from warrior west, in the
suburbs of Prague-to-be: a woman
who is not a man, for
five thousand years, in which
we have learned to write with
fast fingers, blog and fear.
One grave, one loved person, and
five thousand years – from clay tablet
to wired world – in a waste of words.
Not gay. No cave. No vestments.
Just acceptance lost this spring,
in Prague, pressed, and buried.
2012 © Andie Davidson
Published in Realisations.
This is the hand
that curled around the enormity
of a finger outstretched in wonder
at my tiny, perfect, nails.
This is the hand
that pointed to nipples in the bath
asking: ‘mummy what are these for?’
no – not for anything.
This is the hand
that stool-high stirred a cake, that sat
gritty, dirty, mixing cement for a wall –
distinguishing neither.
This is the hand
that learned the pen, figure and script,
to describe, shooting high: ‘I know, miss!’
too often to answer.
This is the hand
that dressed a paper doll and made a dart,
that sprayed the scent and built with bricks
high enough to fall.
This is the hand
that curled around my enormity
not knowing what it was for or why,
and was afraid.
This is the hand
that wrote songs, found what it was
to touch another, know resonance,
strike a chord.
This is the hand
that painted pictures with film,
with brush, and the brush of filmy
sensuous things.
This is the hand
that built from wood, that sewed, sawed
ironed, mended with iron – and delved
the stinking drain.
This is the hand
that held a bucket of blood – loved, willed
that everything would be alright again,
but limp with fear.
This is the hand
that held the finger of the boy
as long as my forearm, in wonder
at his tiny perfect nails.
This is the hand
that made cakes into cars and, blackened
with grease, made cars go a little longer
earnings eased.
This is the hand
that every day turned mind into money
and money into memories, memories
into bonds.
This is the hand
that gave you your first orgasm,
breaking out of my closing preserve,
ending its cheat.
This is the hand
instrument of the heart, that curls now
around this new enormity, outstretched
and is empty.
This is the hand
that stirred, that moved, that made –
that unnamed, but always female, has
become inappropriate.
This is the hand.
Discovered.
That waves.
That drowns.
2012 © Andie Davidson
Easter, as old as the realisation of Spring –
that the sun never dies, that ground revives and
March hares box into an Osterhase that bounds
into daffodils, juggling expertly with eggs
boxed, around chocolate indulgences for sins
half-remembered by a half-forgotten Lent –
borrowed Easter symbols for a dying rising Christ
all named for the goddess of fertility and the dawn.
With a passion Eostre calls, new life in her flight
all light and love and no regrets, nothing to forgive.
I follow, as I must – this Friday, Good without dying,
branch and stock holding new blossoms, leaves
proud and high and bright as any ascension,
nothing crossed out or buried, nothing lost in celebration
of simply living, extravagantly becoming, singing
strong, vibrant – all affirmation in her passing over.
For me, this Easter, a man does not die, though
a woman lives with all the joy of Spring
and requires no forgiveness for long Winter –
only smiles of a goddess returning, bringing
colour, completeness, fullness of purpose
not rising from death, but waking, with a sun ready
to make fruit before she departs again to sleep,
and to play with hares, break eggs and share –
take, eat – she says. This is my body, and I am
indulged and free, at one with Eostre.
2012 © Andie Davidson