Invasion & The rains
by Jonathan Wonham
[ poetry - march 05 ]
Invasion
Arriving in Britain for the first time, William the Conqueror ate a mouthful of sand.
It’s a handful you have in your hands.
Not a fist of the clay your boots leave behind
nor the hourglass grains you shovel into bags
but something less well defined.
Not clean, firm sand nor a mire of grey
but a lump of silt from the estuary.
An ‘earth turd’ is what I have in mind,
cold as the bank that gave it away.
Rotting black and sulphurous as hell,
you scoop it up quick and don’t see
what you’ve grabbed from the low water line.
Take a mouthful, do. It’s your country.
The rains
Huge tears swell from my eyes.
The rains have come that always failed
transforming my dusty cheeks
with their streams, their silver trails.
The rain is standing up on the earth.
It splashes ochre onto my pale shins
dissolving the dust around me like paint.
I open my mouth and let it pour in.
Now I’m dissolving, pieces
dropping away, great chunks of earth.
I’m falling apart like a badly made pot,
crumbling since the ruin of my birth.
How will it end? Some kind
of renewal? Soft clay in your hands?
Or will I be washed once more down river
to fertilise another far flung land?
