Category / The Clearing / Poetry

The stone is not inert / but processing the darkness, turning it back into
light, / light turning back into dark…

After her mother dies she thinks it good to dig her plot:
nineteen metres by thirteen, and given
over to goosegrass and offcuts of carpet, tucked
in the far corner of the allotments

‘When you know a place lifelong, you’ve no need of maps;
every name has its shapes and its feel underfoot:
Helks, Jacksons Pasture, Perry Moor – even the fields
have names: Robins Close, Parrocks Meadow.’

When it rains in the hills the river down here

sings a wild song, foams at the mouth,

twists its tongue on the messages it brings,

keeps us in our place.