Last year he swore the sun would tumble

and burn us all, then he dreamt the waves stopped

and fish froze solid. This spring, his fear was

a Great Flood. “The world will drown,”

he predicted, “every living thing.”

I called him a fool and went to feed the goats.

Then I found him lugging trees down the cattle byre.

His eyes were hollows filled with light.

“I’m mekking a boat,” he snarled  — 

the prow stretched right down our barn.

Nor could he rest until our sons had joined him.

Their hammers hurt my brain  — 

and the cows bellowing, wanting milking,

with only me aware.

I killed the goats on my own too, my hair

gobbed with blood. We must take one pair of all

our stock he said. The rest must be salted down.

So I hacked and chopped and boiled

and could not stop shivering.

The neighbours laughed as we passed,

until a plug fell out the clouds.

In an hour the drains were fountains.

By nightfall, water was crumbling our walls.

The lights died, but I could hear the terror next door

and how they scrambled for chairs and mats

anything that would float.

Noah was aflame then, shouting and praying

— useless. I had to grab the children and fill the water jars

and stack the food, and stop Shem’s wife from screaming.

We forced a hundred hands away when we launched,

slithering down our lawn …

My sister’s face will always float before me.

Two weeks ago the rains stopped. Now

the great lake recedes. We creep between stumps of walls,

through mud and carcasses. Soon we must hit ground

and scramble to begin anew. It is easier to drift

with an acceptable routine. The silence hurts though;

a few bleatings, a cough or two, the creak of canvass …

little else. Even Noah has stopped asking, “Why us?”

just sits against the hay, watching the rainbow.

Perhaps others live beyond the rim of sky,

but though we watch hour upon hour,

no vessel passes us, on this vast, filthy sea.

Walking to Snailbeach: Selected and New Poems, 2004,

Redbeck Press, ISBN 978-1-904338-15-4; 

Faith Tea and other poems by Pauline Kirk, 2006,

St Edward the Confessor, York, ISBN 978-0-953385-11-9;

Pennine Platform, number 57, spring 2005, ISSN 0303 140X

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Why am I carrying coals? — dust blacking my hands,

my face, my clothes, black hod barking my calf,

upstairs, downstairs, filling grates not my own?

The pump is stiff, ice creaks in the morning air. My foot

slips on the scullery step; my chapped hands freeze,

downstairs, upstairs, filling jugs not my own.

My skirt smells of wear, a cousin’s hand-me-down.

Serge chafes my neck, chilblains purple my toes, boots pinch,

upstairs, downstairs, opening curtains not my own.

Some years the chimney breast is warmer, the bed softer.

I learn to love a little, minding children, playing games

downstairs, upstairs, rocking babies not my own.

But the years are cruel, and soon I am wet with steam

again, lighting boilers, possing shirts, mangling sheets,

upstairs, downstairs, carrying linen not my own.

My head aches with sleep. I long for my cruckle bed,

the casement square bright with stars, but voices demand -

downstairs, upstairs, serving needs not my own.

I am become my ancestors: grandmother, great grandmother,

and her mother before, maids of all work, trudging the years,

upstairs, downstairs ... and my modern self despairs.

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Twenty feet of rail track are propped along

a muddy lawn. Tools lie beside and upon, as if discarded

hurriedly: a pick, basket full of stones, sledgehammer

and spike. The rails lead nowhere, and come from nowhere,

though a sign points from Pakan Baru to Muara,

two hundred and fifteen kilometres away.

The day is grey on grey, melting to a weeping horizon.

Clumps of bamboo thresh in an English wind. Here,

even native trees struggle to root in this new,

brave Arboretum, part refuse tip, part played-out quarry.

A memorial explains. The trees and track recall

the Sumatran Railway, completed 15th August, 1945.

A bronze plaque gives dates and reasons.

The lettering is poor, too cramped to convey so much

pain. I cannot take in the numbers  —  Dutch,

English and Australian: perhaps seven hundred dead;

press-ganged Romushas: unknown; more than ten

thousand people altogether ...

They hammered the last nail

into the last sleeper the day the war ended.

The cuttings were reclaimed by root and branch

within weeks. Kilometres of rail slowly rust

in stagnant water; around Pakan Baru children play

on the bones of locomotives and trucks.

In the raw morning air, I walk aside from friends

and the noise of distant cars, and try to imagine

laying track through mountain ridge and swamp,

with those few tools, hacking at rock, standing

in leech infested bog .... and all to build a railway

that was never used, except to repatriate the survivors.

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Lupins flamed in the gardens

of her childhood; red, blue, orange,

slender torches lighting faded walls.

Each summer they flared

between notices sanctifying grass.

A few sturdy delinquents

strayed along railway lines,

rampaged demolition sites.

Uncle George grew lupins too,

elegant spikes groomed daily  — 

each floweret a tiny blue-tongued lizard

sunning itself in a judge’s praise.

Lupins nodded near the french windows

the day he chased her round the settee

and caught her  —  just in fun  — 

his Sunday joke ... their secret.

Now, twenty years on,

she cannot see those niggling,

thrusting, tongues without shuddering.

Last night she found a whole border

lurking in a council park, gaudy as sin.

She trampled and trampled,

high heels piercing soil and flower

and stalk. Not one survived.

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