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Cathy Grindrod

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Crossing the Border (Latvia from an office in England)

for Andrew

Something in your face that stops me,
hand on the receiver, as your face returns
to Latvia;  gives me that gift of the woods in snow;
the people in their headscarves, boots of felt,

their coats as all-familiar

as a mother’s tale of Russian soldiers.
They are rolling up their carpets, humping
them on shoulders, carried far beyond
a pointing arm, to where the fir trees are.

Laying them out.

Forwards, backwards, backwards, forwards,
stamping in the snow.  Through a window streaked
with layers, beyond the orders of the present,
of the past, phones cease to ring.

Absence of birdsong.

Their noble, laughing mouths.  Ice thick-piled
around them, stacked by workers, waiting
for the lorries that may never come.  Beneath
their clean glistening carpets, in rows,

black oblongs in the snow.

Page(s) 23

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