Gillian Stone
A Lady of Lyd to her Daughter's Daughter who stands irresolute in a felled clearing of a Kentish Wood
Standing at the edge of love’s predicament
I’ll signal there: I have been too
Between the fringes of that wood,
Half-way, knee-deep in desiccated grass.
And not known where to turn.
At intervals, all over the cleared land,
Old stumps of trees and lying trunks
Show grey and bark-stripped
Rippling sides, or radially-splitting
Year-ringed faces. They seem
To say: We are in the graves of love.
Here, at the edge, I signal: Daughter,
You stand there green as the dividing tree,
With leaves as root-held as the tree’s
Own binary extremes.
Do not go running to the wood chopper.
His let-live is less finite than his axe
And hangs on your restraint
From making plain the death wish in your dream.
Doubts grout the path
With dust that lifts through coppice,
Settles in your hair. Anxious fingers
Grab at certainty and leave
The slivered wish a heap of bones,
Faggots bound for winter.
Dead grass and live green leaves
Stir in the breeze and as you pass.
They modulate the seasons
Quietly, except in the destructive
Hurricane.
Page(s) 134
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