Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

One looks to the sky, shrouded heaven,
while the other puts knees
to denim-textured paddock,
cupped hands, elbows at coathanger
angles, making the strength of a triangle,
he prays. The furrows on his forehead
scarify into dust of eyebrows
head slightly shadowed over
              he closes the evidence
of drought into a moister
reach of prayer.

In this way his mother
taught him a litany, knees
on polished wood by iron frame of bed.
She had a dry-season strategy
knew the regularity of pasture
burnt by cloudless sun
              saw the tanks shrink
galvanised ring by descending ring
              tasted the thickness
the greyness, of every movement
shadows of dust, crusts of staleness
dropping mantles of powder
              through every open window
making grey the trees and shrubs
and winter hopes.

Pray, she said, Our Father ...
the words like shafts of exploration
sinking test runs, knowing in faith
that persistence shoots forth
in a sudden surge of undiscovered
water. Why else the watching of sheep
and cattle settling back into ribs?
Sunken eyes, ground in cracks
of paving patchwork, water
treated like specks of gold.

Why else? But the slow
crank of seasons, abundance, abundance
swamping and greening over the drybone
times. And even though his mother is long
gone, the drought still casts its net
shoaling in the beached fish of despair-

so close, that last mouthful
so close, until he remembers
her own paddock prayers
dry-seed knees
wet-moss knees
either way, one stands, looks up to the sky
the other prays, whispers into the soil,
a mouth reach away.