Miss Guest

in whiskery tweeds, upright, patrolling
the aisles of our desks where we sat
in obedient rows parsing Latin.
On the long cork board at the back of the room,
her pin-ups: Pliny, Xenophon and Cicero.
Gorgeous with hormones, we sneered at her,
a gently reared spinster who, we thought,
never knew the true meaning of amo amas.
But one day she read us Catullus
and the sun rose in the pale moon of her cheek.
 

Lydia Macpherson

published in The North, 48, ISSN 0269-9885

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Space Station

Alerted by the newspapers, we lean
against the barn’s long wall to watch it track
the winter sky. It’s hard to determine
the co-ordinates and maybe we’ll mistake
it for a plane or star – but then, it’s here,
sudden above the rows of sugar beet,
ploughing the night. We stand, in hugging awe,
heaven-struck like cavemen sighting a comet.
 
Rooted there, we cannot see the rickety
array of mirror tiles, the iridescent
bronzed haphazard symmetry,
outstretched like an emerging insect,
orbiting the earth-lit detritus of space,
bearing its cargo’s gawky, weightless grace.
 

Lydia Macpherson

published in anthology Days of Roses, eds Declan Ryan and Malene Engelund,
2011, ISBN 978-0-9568223-0-7

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In Jim Ede’s House

     Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge
 
Your walls are twenty different shades of snow
as sound and light get filtered into stillness.
Eighty-three thin stones duet with their reflections
on the Bechstein’s lid like shells spread out
on beaches at the end of a long day’s rain.
 
And, though we know we cannot touch,
I’m holding out for your blessing
among the dip and swoop of bowls
and sculpture, a half-burned candle,
a vase more beautiful for being broken.
 
We’re told the maker exits when the work is made,
but you remain, filling the spaces
and, among your other pieces, here I am,
arranged, curated, taken care of.
 

Lydia Macpherson

Published online at ink sweat & tears

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The Winter Outing of the Woolhope Naturalists Field Club, December 1870

The ladies of the party are helped over the stile
by whiskered botanists fond of a well turned ankle.
Miss Taylor draws a notebook from her beaded reticule
and writes “The bunch of mistletoe was so large
that it could be exceedingly well seen from the lane.”
 
The Reverend Johnson climbs the ladder
“placed with thoughtful consideration” amid banter
from the men about Druids, golden sickles
and garlanded white yearling bulls.
 
The Reverend drops the felted sticky bundle
and “small sprays of the heaven born plant
unpolluted by any touch of earth” are given out
to “all the ladies present”. Miss Taylor holds
the wishbone sprig with its smeary fruit.
Her whalebone stays are biting, her chilblains
ache, her hem is iced with mud. She smiles
(Mama says she must always smile).
In the dwindling light the botanists are advancing.
 

Lydia Macpherson

published online at Days of Roses
and at Ink Sweat & Tears

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