Long questing days
the anchor raised
we longed to ground
in territory we could not find.
The anxiety about money
which frayed and rowed,
the hateful to and fro.
We kept going.

II

The steel-shod boots of men
their paint-fouled radio
filled our new house with other music.
Where now our bed is assembled
was last month scuffed boards,
a bath smashed to iron pieces.

These builders have gone now
and we four have moved in
to occupy ours which is left behind.
A thatched roof, its green mountain moss,
cider apples in our garden,
my study walls the colour of blood,
my books, my desk, a photograph of my father
younger than I am now.

Your bedroom looks across the valley.
The plasterer in his desert-issue combats
made good your ceiling,
filling your shell with his trance music
his arms aloft, his body static,
a human line going up, coming down.

In your cot splays a lamb’s wool
imprinted with your brothers’ scent;
the mugging warmth of these fibres against your skin
against your calcifying bone will hold you.
In this room we will,
each one of us,
assimilate you.

III

I am raking leaves in the rain.
Nearby the hiss and putter of a fire,
its chute of smoke.
The bare-windowed house lit
before me in bright array,
my film, my set.

In our new kitchen
two boys eating their tea.
Hungry, wonderful boys
obeying their mother,
who mimes a book,
leans to kiss her sons,
and keeps going.

Wind shifts the smoke
chambering me,
claiming me in its ashes and moonlight.
I step clear into the darkness
towards the bright frame of my family.
Four of us, almost five.
My eyes tear at the prospect of you.
I love you already you see,
I love you.

November, 2010