Poetry

Greensand

You built your home on greensand,

chalk-ridged and sister-hilled,

dreaming over again your family’s 

songlines, in bluebell copses

and sunstriped beech woods.

But you shook your roots, tapped 

and feathered, trailed them west     

to where the air was easter-scented 

and you were five years old 

again, making miniature gardens

from moss, pushing forget-me-nots

and primroses into stolen egg cups.

In the river-bound valley you hear 

trees, vellumed by moss

rise up, 

lichen-mottled

to speak to the light,

fern-shrouded

and whispering

in the primal dark.

You find the flowers of your 

girlhood in the swerve 

of the lanes, sound 

out their echoes,begin to gather new songs.

Poems in Performance

I am turning into all the mothers…

Folk Festival, 1982

Echo

*Trigger warning: Pregnancy loss