15_shifting

SHIFTING LANDSCAPES

I have it now. My grandmother brushing her long white hair
into the sun. Hold it there. Still as a photograph.

I cannot say how old I am. Nor whether
yellow roses were flowering at her window.

Or whether snow humped on the narrow sill
darkening the interior. Or whether a pandemonium of rooks

cawed above their high stick-nests as the sea wind
shook the boughs of the Oak Wood. Yet now

I have cast it into words I am less than sure.
Did I really see her? Or did I read it in a story book

and, loving the imaginal drift, take it into my unsung life
to call my own, the most delicate theft?

Or after her deep coma and death did I dream it?
And why, as I write, does the picture fade?

For now I sense only the tenure of silence:
a solitary rook over the wood…snow sheathing the roses.