• John Glenday

 

STORMY

Marjory: born January 1804 died August 1805

 

At first, it is nothing:

a blemish, a blush of sky

bruised by the coming storm.

 

But it flourishes and grows.

The hydrangea darkens against the lawn.

Lay aside poultices and medicines,

 

lift up your empty hands.

Consider the life thriving inside us

as a birch, a silver birch. We think

 

nothing can possibly trouble it

then, for no reason, in the still

summer air, a leaf shakes.

 

 

 

RAIN

Helen born January 1808 died February 1811

 

If I had cried sooner, they would have known sooner

but I carried the pain, its terrible, secret gift,

 

sullenly inside me, for as long as I could bear.

I knew it was my shame. This, all children believe.

 

Such sadness, so many tears. Few of them mine.

Were they crying for the loss of the child,

 

for the loss of the world I was leaving, or for

that other world, the world they had yet to find?

 

 

 

NO CHANGE

Jane born March 1814 died January 1818

 

Infusion of yarrow.

Elderflower. Feverfew.

Prayer and then further prayer.

The desperate, hopeless,

hopeful, repetitive, heartfelt,

bargaining with whoever we imagine

claimed they made and loved us all.

 

 

 

FAIR

Peter born and died March 1819

 

These are the ones loved best of all -

golden haired, fresh cheeked, shy,

because they remind us of the little

messengers He sends down to us,

 

or pretends to send down,

to inform us that the world

we are living in is not the one

we should be grieving for.

 

 

 

VERY DRY

James born and died June 1820

 

Each eye a porthole of empty sky

turned towards the ceiling’s hopeful shore.

Somewhere in me, dry

 

summer grasses, the rusty shears

of swallows over the lane. My parched mouth

gaped, I was a furnace. She held water

 

to my lips but I would not drink.

I was only crying for the water to be laid in.

Listen, even now there is a fringe of dust

 

clinging to my words.

Today, though no one but me can see it,

the firth is a blue field sown with gulls.