In the garden where we sit together
I wait for news holding my breath.
Snowdrops nod catching a breeze.
I’m told he’s through the worst and awake.
Above me wild geese are heading north
in splintered lines through shifting clouds.
I think of the nurses connecting tubes monitoring
repeated patterns in green yellow blue.
When I ring he tells me broken things
I remind myself it’s the anaesthetic the anaesthetic
I won’t ask him how or where he is
he’s blown off-course. There are strangers
in the ward at three in the morning
crying fear roars of thunder
dread of wind men shouting
like sticks snapping from branches.
I remember my mother abstractions
falling from her lips her eyes buried too far
below the surface. She never knew there was a last day.
I tell him there’s a spring lawn waiting morning stars
gliding through marigolds
blackbirds calling the air.
Kerry Darbishire lives in the English Lake District. She writes most days inspired by
her wild surroundings. Her poems have won and been placed in many competitions
and appear widely in anthologies and magazines. She has three poetry collections
two pamphlets and her most recent, River Talk, is published by Hedgehog Press.
Twitter contact: @kerrydarbishire
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