Black and white and red all over & The Downs
by Katy Evans-Bush
[ poetry - june 07 ]
Black and white and red all over
For some reason the sky turned red,
smoking and cloudy: a tempest brewing,
they said. When it became a twister
and I ran into the shopping centre.
All of a sudden you were there,
for me! It was my birthday you'd missed -
or I'd missed yours. You'd flown the distance
and shown up younger, your party self,
in a crimson shirt, with pitch black hair.
There were no windows. The storm was over-
head somewhere. You'd brought something,
bent to pick it up, and held it out,
talking the whole time in all directions;
but before I could accept your present
I saw that I was looking straight
into the past, and when I woke up it was raining.
The Downs
Who knows how many
layers on layers on layers?
Everywhere! How many
mounds became hills
before they became
history, names, places?
We sometimes recognise
their scraps, their shoes...
How many of them,
long-haired, brown-eyed,
fond of a story, still
maybe almost warm,
were carted, shouldered,
leather-stretchered, wheel-
jolted to where
only bones can survive?
Tell me what kind
of love was that?
To build the earth?
Their poor heads, bowed
in sadness, yes,
sackcloth-hooded,
knowing the future!
Even down below us
their roads persist, rutted
with procession, recession,
procession. How much
smaller their world
must have been:
how much taller we
can stand, so cool, so
further from the fire.
