Tag Archives: travel

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Verdant

Lilies grew out of the scar on my tummy, daring, irreverent and girlish. They flung their arms wide; they didn’t care. Lisianthus burst up and out, willowy, confident, pretty and they knew it. They waved at the lilies who nodded in respect. Painted ladies and red admirals fluttered from the same places where the flesh had bled, their damp tissue paper wings felt cool against the air. Meconium pumped out, squirted across the scar as if to say, I love you, I remember. As if to say, all the pain, the hours of spasms, the empty walls I looked at, waiting hoping, are all tucked away and understood.

The nights spaced out, the ceilings passing over me, all locked away with care and when my language broke, when halos caressed each word that left my mouth, when every breath was forged from armour, when the weight of the shields tore my muscles to shreds, I kept on holding. When every cell pulsed with one cause, when no one could help me but the tiger claws that grew, claws of steel against the battle that consumed me.

Then.

Then my scar erupted, then it exploded out in trees, oaks towering from my tiny form, their roots soaked in my blood, fed from my placenta and willows softened out the gash, they wept over the chasm where my abdomen had been, they wrapped their tendrils around the scalpels and the knives, they paved the way, they saved me. They dropped leaves into my hollow and from the mulch, from the deep rich earth inside me, petrichor filled the theatre, soil sodden with my tears and surgeons took a step back, as I expanded, I roared life into the room.

Eagles flew out of me, feathers caked in green and red, they soared around the room, under their spotlights, singing loud. I remember the golden flash of their beaks, they winked at me with eyes that saw more than I could and, in the crater, where my abdomen used to be, a forest thrived, birds cheered, creatures danced, insects giggled in the sunshine.

I watched the ceiling smile down on me as I stroked the wound, hand bloodied and joyous. We Made This the corpuscles seemed to say. And my body rejoiced. My body was perfect, my scar came to show me the way.

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Shimmerings

Right now I feel I am hiding from the blossom as it holds onto the branch but I know it’s out there, I feel it waving, bobbing, whispering to me from outside my window. It won’t be long before I look it in the face and I can hear it calling out to me, look up, look up, look up again and I know I will.

My trees know just what to do just like my clouds and I am gentle white and pink and sometime rippling rose. I hear them just beyond the glass, framing the trees, throwing their colours to sky and I breathe out. I breathe out as if for the first time, I breathe out like the morning when I woke and squealed and rushed and laughed.

And women fussed around me, hair was curled in ringlets and my feet secured in ivory silk. They would hold me up and they did, as they do now and I breathed out. And I was bound up in taffeta as I always would be, strapped in and laced with ribbons at the back. And at the front, encasing my heart, I was held in rich wine velvet, the deepest red because I could never wear anything else, soft and strong, the unconditional love around my tiny form.

And it’s ok I tell myself, and it is. I can smell the fabric, hear its rustle, taste the rose pink lipstick on my mouth and I am there.

Ready to be wrapped in blossom, petals on me, decorating my features, tickling my neck like confetti dropping down. And I shuffled, I clicked heels down our pathway and nestled my boots in the footwell of the car and later, not much later, they moved over ancient stone, disturbing the dust of centuries, the remnants of other women who had walked and stopped and spoke and loved.

And in the echo of those before me I stood, silken and shimmering like something waiting to emerge and I did. I raised my bouquet to the sky and petals fell around us, photons warmed us, like they do and sunlight lit red velvet, lit my face and the scent of blossom filled us up, as if to saturate the day in certainty and it did and it does.

I’ve been hiding from the blossom for a while now but today I peered back outside my window, took the deepest breath to drink it in. It’s all ok, it whispered to me and I heard it. It reached me, saved me yet again. The wisdom fluttering down through years, curled and chaotic just like me, but it will settle, rest itself soon and nourish the soil beneath my trees. I’m drenched in petals and confetti yet again. Thank God my flowers know just what to do.

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From Where the Birds had Flown

I wonder if the tree is still there in the churchyard where I took the pine needles in my hand while we walked? I wonder about the soft threads in my velvet leggings and whether they’re still on the planet somewhere or if they’ve biodegraded by now. And 7 Seconds played on the car radio, in a car that by now will have turned to nuts and bolts.

I think about the bench in Bruton Park and if it still exists or has it been chopped up and turned to firewood and the metal smelted down. I wonder what happened to the the cages in the nature reserve where we wandered, how even now I can taste the still air and hear the leaves under our feet, in the strangeness, in the almost stagnant places from where the birds had flown.

And what happened to the white ceramic bowl with the first of the chicken salads, did it break years ago, is it fragmented in soil, mixed with mulch, feeding roses somewhere I’ll never know? And what about the settee with its soft green Fleur De Lys pattern, with the nap I felt under my hands when my eyes closed, have those fibres disintegrated by now?

I still hear the reliable tick of my parent’s mantle piece clock, marking time, stroking the moments as though they never ended and though that mechanism has long since been deconstructed, the echo of it fills my ears now.

Of course, I wore red socks and my silk waistcoat was shimmering black. I wonder if its small buttons are sewn onto something else now or if they sit in someone’s sewing box, someone unaware of the role that they played in my life.

I wonder about the birds that had flown, whether they had chicks, and whether generations of them later, they fly over me in a different town, dropping feathers onto the new pathways that I make now.

I look out for them. It’s March 26th, I’m not bothered, it’s only time.

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Day Tripper

To the woman in the trench coat on the bus, with longer, thicker, darker hair like I used to know, you will be fine. And I watch her from the back seat of the bus, years away from her but she doesn’t know I’m there.

And if I stood up and wobbled with the motion, if I plumped down besides her and took her hand then she would jump. And she’d wonder who the older woman was as I leaned in and whispered in her ear. But she doesn’t jump because she cannot see me sitting there. And I push the hair back from her ear and whisper ‘you’ll be alright’ but she cannot hear me because she’s rushing. She’s stumbling up to A & E while her young boy is at Primary and I watch her hurry as I walk behind her and I know the things that wait for her behind the heavy doors.

And if she could sense me, she’d look behind her and wonder why the older woman followed but she wouldn’t stop to question because there was no time.

And I watch her as the doors to A & E swallow her up whole leaving nothing but the memory of her rushing through. And I’m waiting to take her hand and squeeze it tight, I’m ready to catch her when she faints as she will do and as I cradle her younger body into my arms I’ll stroke her forehead and tell her she’ll be alright as we both rest there on their sterile scrubbed white floor.

And if she could hear me, if she could look into my eyes, she’d not believe me but I hold her close and keep her warm. She scatters into tiny pieces and I’ll call out her name. I’ll make everything alright for her because it will be, in a way she’d not imagine, if she could only hear me and if she could see my form.

To the woman in the trench coat with longer, thicker, darker hair like I used to know, I promise you, believe me, you will be fine. And somehow, somewhere my words will reach her and I’ll never ever leave her side.

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My Golden Ratio

I will allow myself to wear red again or so it seems, in this image, on that day over there, in the corner of my mind. But if I’m honest with myself and I do need to be, it’s not in the corner of my mind, it’s in-front of everything I do, it’s loud and daring on my kitchen floor and I have unraveled today.

I’m waiting for the leaves to turn a little more, waiting for the soft ageing to calm me down, let the golds and umbers settle me, let vermilion still my mind. But it’s not yet.

The hawthorn outside my window is hanging on to summer, its leaves are glossed and green but the berries have started to burst through. I can feel the blackbirds watching, grateful for the abundance, for the ease of finding food.

They lived under my eaves through spring and summer, I used to hear them rustling and scratting in the dark above my head. Sometimes at night when I woke, when I couldnt settle myself, I’d hear them move around and I’d call out.

I’d call them birdies and would whisper soft into the darkness, go back to sleep now birdies and they would and I did too.

But now they’ve gone. I just hear silence in my eaves but I know they’re still out there, keeping an eye on my tree, eager for berries, waiting for the lush firm fruit to fill their beaks.

And I wait too.

There’s such a tension, like something humming at my core, some necessary essence waiting for its turn and this morning it burst through.

I have calmed a little now, regained some poise and quietness but this morning I changed my ways.

I charged out through the grey autumn, unfurling and stretching out as though there was no resistance, as though there was only joy.

And in my unraveling I booked tickets to the show and then my mind wandered up the street, past the estate agents, past the army museum and the old red brick walls I knew so well, walls that I knew from an earlier time, when I was chaotic and free. And so this morning I walked that route again, past the Hotel du Vin but then I stopped.

I found myself able to do anything so I paused and went through their doors, I looked at rooms and made choices and in my haze and daze I found a suite. And how perfect it was with patio doors that lead out to its own private garden and that would do nicely I thought.

And there draped in red, in russet maybe, nothing harsh or emboldened but a softened red of ageing, of wisdom, of a maturity to hold myself up to the light. And there in my russet awareness I almost booked the room. And I would have added dinner of course but stopped just short of that.

And then the winds danced at my window and pulled me back inside away from the streets I know so well, away from the memories of purple curtains and the swirling depth of wine. Days merged and frayed, moments hanging like the leaves that need to fall, like words dropping onto grass, like footsteps on cobbles, Italian streets when I wore cream linen and the golden light through their windows which rippled across and stopped time.

And somewhere in autumn, in the fracturing moments of myself, in the scent of the Sistine chapel I burst through, from there to here and out and onwards, upwards, outwards to another day, another time, when I would allow myself to wear red again. To wear russet and flow, to sparkle and drift through streets with no resistance and in the overwhelming colours of possibility I almost booked a room.

I can breathe again now, memory and fantasy have merged and drifted down. I’ll be alright soon. I do think so much of wearing red though, of being delirious autumn trees in sunlight, of not being afraid to shine.

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A Womb of My Own

I grew a seed,

embedded and safe,

charged with potential to be.

I swelled like a spring fruit,

nascent and sun-blushed,

full of juice and tender flesh.

I stretched and sustained,

moulded and flowed,

an insistent present tense.

I blossomed into autumn,

round and lumbering,

a pulsing pod of blood.

I reshaped as the shell, the outer husk,

fierce and ferocious,

fighting tooth and claw, protect my form.

Until I became,

I separated, split in two,

into us, our necessary cells,

an ecstasy of emergence,

bleeding and bonded and whole.

I flooded into his immaculate mouth

as lilies opened in my heart.

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For Safe Keeping

Find her by the canal in her black and white skirt with bells. Find her navigating it all as she jingled, as she smiled.

And there under the August sky, find her leaning up the old Orion, in her black Mary Jane’s and her silk waistcoat.

Later, after chicken salad, no doubt, find her by her candlewick bedspread, chartreuse and tattered but perfect. The only way to end the day.

And in the morning, in the same skirt, find her smile at the bedroom door and make plans to carry her home.

Just find her. Over and over and over again. Always in August, to keep her safe.

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Luminescence

I wanted to be that little girl, right there. That girl, and she was four or maybe five. I passed her by on the roadside, in the sunlight, in the delerious white-out of a spring afternoon.

And look at that girl, I thought. Just look at her and I held her in my mind for three seconds or maybe four.

She shimmered on the roadside, on the pavements grey, in her sparkling silver padded jacket which fired back photons to anyone who dared to look.

She lit up the streets, defying smudged reflections of rushing people, of chaotic traffic on grimed windows. And passing by upturned hot wasps on peeling windowsills, she jumped the cracks in the pavement because it kept her safe.

Her baby pink flared jeans flashed candyfloss at anyone who noticed as she hopscotched herself along. Armoured bears growled behind her, goblins sneered up through drains but she didn’t care.

Because it was a springtime afternoon and the blossom frittered away the hours all around her and city sparrows sang joyous, despite the fumes.

Just for a moment if I could be that little girl, casting halos around the litter, that pulsing, beaming dance of limbs, I would be free.

And I passed by the little girl and held her in my mind, like a retina stain on my memories of what it felt like to sparkle under blossom. What it felt like to be magnificent in the spring.

And I passed by with her shimmering in a review mirror, with the candy pink jeans just a flutterering on my shoulder, like the falling petals in my pinned up hair.

And for a second or two, or maybe three, I remembered how I used to feel.

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Chamber of Stars

And she breathed and unseen beaks opened as if to say, me too. They took in the fresh morning air and remembered what it is to fly. And on her wings she swooped over distant rooves where cars parked up and bins lined up and people did their thing.

She did her thing and she did it well and there she sat on the roof of the house, ruffling feathers and with knowing eyes, she peered inside his room.

And there she sat on the floor with her back to the bed and her lap was filled with books, with the words, with his bright blue biro scrawl and she reached in.

She traced her fingertips over pages and watched as he appeared. Out he came like a thought, floating up towards her, like the curve of a balloon in a hot summer sky and he circled and he led the way.

He led her to his shed at the bottom of the garden and pushed open wide the door. It creaked and eased onto a world she’d come to know. It was as though two small girls had found their way, had dared to creep over the threshold, like a childhood place, like a secret land that called them to come inside.

And inside they looked up in wonder and stared at The Machine.

‘What is it? What on Earth is it?’ they would ask as though they were characters in a well loved book.

Till the small girls faded and she was stood with him in the dust, in their particle-wave duality. And he would be in his element, in the quiet fug as he set the cogs in motion. Gears moved and wheels turned, firing bits of muck and fluff into the air. Beetles scuttled and woodlice trundled out of sight as the universe in the shed sparked life, shaking the detritus from the gloom.

And there they stood in the photons, as he burbled through his ideas and concepts and his thoughts danced around her like a flutter of butterflies, their fresh fragile wings entangling her hair.

They flew up from the contraption and out through spacetime, released into the universe, like a tensor, like a field equation of their life to come.

And she observed it all, sat high upon the shed roof, ruffling her feathers and watching herself take form.

There was a shed and The Machine, there was a bookcase and a girl. And everything rippled and reverberated out. Irrepressible, on that day, in the embryo of their world.

And she breathed out as unseen birds sang and beaks opened loud and glorious, as if to say all’s well.

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Beyond Glenfield Road

Breathe on me and I will vanish, I will disperse into the air taking my long thick dark brown hair away. And the red fleece of my jacket and the fluff in my pocket will be a memory on the wind.

But you will remain with your calcite core, with your compounds, your glinting similarities to my seashells and my pearls.

And I will shine near the summit looking out to Sabden and Padiham, holding tight to Colne.

While you nestle tucked away, carboniferous in russet, smooth in sandstone in my palm. And I will rub you while I crumble, I will feel the biting wind shriek up my hair.

There with my glacial tilt, my boulder clay which called me. Pick me up and hold me close and I did. I squeezed you in my pocket, I hid you out of sight.

While December chills took my left hand to my ear to keep out the gusts. And the smell of her perfumed cheek and thickness of her winter coat were shutter clicked and frozen to the bone.

We grinned in the cold.

But you will remain with your time smoothed angles, a permanence beyond my emphemeral form. So breathe on me and watch my smile flake to the clouds, watch me scatter in the hills.

And long after the imprint of my trainers has eroded, after my keratin has blown away, you will still feel me. The warmth of my hand embedded in your limestone and your limestone and my secret smile, a fossil of our day.