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Ian Parks

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The Storm

The night before your father died
     you struggled with the storm.
           It came against you with the force
     of something understood,
distressing cattle iii the yard

and grappling with your dress.
      It scoured the narrow valley,
           ripping trees up by the roots.
      All night the dogs were restless;
geese raised white and futile wings

as if to fend off death.
      When they broke the news to you
            the storm had run its course.
       One of those perfect northern dawns:
the wrecked transmitter scattered

over uplands streaked with mist.
      Your voice came cracked and thin
           over the wires. By midnight
       I was there - your cramped,
haphazard farmhouse flanked by moors.

I took a candle up the narrow stairs;
      shadows flailed around your head.
            Then in the empty kitchen I sat down
      to one spare meal of bitter herbs and bread;
drank wine from your dark cellar,

furred with cold, and tasted there
      for the first time, among the stripped
           essentials of a life I leave and enter
      at my will a grief so huge and inexplicable
that breaks and won’t be comforted.

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