The Roads I’ve Been
School mornings walking down our sodden leaf lane,
Then through a hedgerow of broken bottles, crisp packets, and stubs.
I was down a slope of pulled up concrete chewed between moss,
To iron gates over cracked paving with a white wash of hop-scotch.
Then it was concrete over weeds with plugged ears,
Spotty tiles of gum, glue, and tears of rain.
I made the journey a story of dramatic exits,
Each weathered car a dream racing by on rubber wheels.
My mother walked the paths behind our house,
I can never keep up with her stride.
My grandmother once outpaced us all,
She still does in her retorts.
My sisters share many twine-twisted roads,
Foundations of rock then mud part clay.
I took the abandoned paths of my father,
And made bridges of lichen-bed stone.
Now I look at the steps up to my house,
Warped, and withered with age.
But strong enough to hold the valley,
Foundations to grow my family.
Purple Stone
My grandma keeps a slab in her hallway,
The shiny shark fins ever tearing through
turbulent waters of purple stone.
All her sharp edges encased in rock,
An inheritance – someone joked one day
Like it wouldn’t outlive us all.
Grandma knew the stones and their voices rang,
What do you need – what will help?
What coloured eye will soothe or remedy?
I wear opal for clarity and doubts,
And the amethyst is for harmony,
This one is broken.
Bog People
The hair is the same straw-coloured strands,
Mud filled the gaps between my death and beyond.
The eyes stay closed forever now but not an eyelash is missing,
Her lips are blue but still full like she could rise any moment.
Their forms sink to the earth but don’t return,
Stuck in a cycle of time’s unending inhale.
Snippets of time that should’ve been washed away,
Relics from battles with no songs left.
Their clothes have not rotten,
Bones remain unspoiled and still.
Wrapped in grief, mystery, or doom,
No names remembered, no mouths who can speak them.
The secrets sunk deep beyond us,
Earth’s crust holding its fingers crossed.
What lurks beneath us, kept so neatly,
It’s stomach full and ever still.
DoubleSpeak 