Strange beast

I didn’t notice it at first: it lay silent in a corner,
unfazed by laughter, tears, irreverence.
While I auto-piloted through a bureaucratic haze, it may
have twitched an ear, held out a paw as if saying
‘I’m still here’. It was ignored.
 
But as days took on new patterns, I became aware,
saw it start to grow. Before long it emerged full-size
to prowl, wrap itself round my legs or lash my arm.
Some mornings I awoke and thought it gone;
others I found its chill weight on my chest.
 
Weeks passed. Although I learned to lock it in the house,
at times it would escape, stalk me, grab me by the throat
so that I fought to find my voice. Time will tame it, blunt
those claws, those teeth, as everybody says.
I know, I know.
 

Gill Learner

first published in Acumen 96, January 2020
and featured as guest poem on the Acumen website;
in collection Change, 2021, Two Rivers Press, ISBN 978-1-909747-89-0

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Time out

No-one knows which hospital but family history
had it on the Isle of Wight. A shaded-glass back door,
rotting wooden steps, five of them, all nip-waisted crispness.
One’s my aunt, Adelaide Marie, always known as ‘Bob’.
Scarcely seventeen, inside the starched half-halo
of her cap, she grins.
                                               Home and belovéd piano
left behind in Chandler’s Ford, she joined the VADs.
Ever the tomboy, she must have struggled to keep
that floor-length apron clean, those stiff cuffs white.
I imagine her singing softly as she scrubbed bedpans
in the sluice, mopped between beds, smiled comfort.
But she never spoke of it.
 

Gill Learner

1st prize in Hampshire County Council’s ‘100 words for 100 years’ competition
and published in the prize-winners booklet;
in collection Change, 2021, Two Rivers Press, ISBN 978-1-909747-89-0

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The river

You are my source, my stream and drift, my estuary.
I can dabble your shallows or steeple my arms
to arrow through your depths. I am the prey
of weeds that hug my limbs so that I fear
 
I may never rise again. But I do: gasping, elated.
Your surface glowers, even in sun, but in the deeps
there’s flash and flare. Exotic fish astonish
with their brilliance of shape and shade. Moonlight
 
turns your ripplings to silver foil. You roll through fields
and woods, admired, adored by millions from peasant
to Archduke to Emperor. When you broaden into sea
wave on receding wave absorbs your molecules, spreads
 
them to the unwoken world. Your murmuring is balm;
your surges set blood thundering. We turn to you
in peace and war; funerals, weddings, christenings
have sailed on your broad breast. At times you sing
 
like the brooks that nourished you, while
from Bagatelle through Solemn Mass to mighty Ninth
echoes of your influence ring down through centuries
and your genius flows on – Beethoven.
 

Gill Learner

in collection Change, 2021, Two Rivers Press, ISBN 978-1-909747-89-0

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Skyward

     You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?
                         Rumi
 
My body is surrounded by white light
 
               I lie counting breaths
                               in-two-three-four   out-two-three-four
 
               my limbs feel like felled elms
                               my torso is weighted
                                               sensing the beat of earth beneath the pelt
 
                                                               my nose is full of the mustiness of soil
                                                                               sweet dryness of grass
 
                               high above there’s a whistle like a bosun’s pipe
                                               without looking I know the silhouette
                                                               finger-tipped wings   notched tail
                                                                               the colours
                                                                                               coal   bone   cinnabar
 
my body fills with white light   becomes weightless
 
               I am floating   higher   higher   adrift
                               over the meadow
                                               over alders and poplars that lean into the river
                                                               dense blackthorn   broad-beamed oaks
 
                                               over rooftops   pale scrawls of road
                                                               a scurrying motorway   flashing blue
 
The white light starts to fade
                               grass tickles my heels
                                               a stone prods my right shoulder-blade
 
I have landed.
 

Gill Learner

first published in Fifty Ways to Fly, ed. Alison Hill (Rhythm & Muse, 2007);
in collection Change, 2021, Two Rivers Press, ISBN 978-1-909747-89-0

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