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Gemma Bristow

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The Field

(for my mother and for Jackie)

i) 

She sustained the older woman
with a religion of hours,
the precious bread
coaxed from her aching back
and the spines of the shorn field.

All day she walked, following
the kirtle of the sun.
A few spared poppies
blossomed in the water-jar.

And she was not even
the daughter of the woman,
just one who had taken on
the love of a daughter.

ii)

In the cool house, Naomi
lifts the ladle
and counts out the swelling grains,
each one marked with the finger
and thumbprint of her daughter.

She watches calmly from the doorway,
content to let Ruth labour
in her dark gown across the faded field,
learning its landscape;

alert to every separate grain,
the sigils of drought-crack and shadow,
condensing treasure
to a filled palm.

So that when she finds
her basket full of wheat
in the middle of the day
it will be the only possible miracle -

She lays aside
propriety, mourning
with the wheat husk.
Her wishes for her
are the wishes of a mother.

Page(s) 9-10

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