Poetry

Tony Fanning

By

Christopher Hopkins

Upper Mine Winter Shawl

Days as different,

as different as the colours of bone and mud.

A weathered carcass of hill pony,

solid in its mis-adventure,

rests amongst the waves

of the sweeping mallow tide.

There, at the black hill’s watermark

fortunes fleet,

with the ebb away of the Mother’s breath.

Even when September calls,

of Venus and the moon,

there waits a whispered chill.

Soon the Norther points

to a deeper cold.

Then the turning comes,

and the land is put to death.

Yet on the rough tides,

of the ploughed mountain sides,

the scarring of beauty never stops,

as the compass bars of draglines swing,

to the heart of the gloss black pit,

and thunder cracks ringing loud

with every shattered beat.

In sheltering rows of stone cots below,

the kin will wait the frozen hours,

until the fathers is set faced

to the warming dancer, safe at the native hearth,

but they’ll sleep with shallow beating hearts,

till the mallow tide come flowing back.

Slowly the Mother’s breath does come,

and life unlocks itself.

The turning back to living waters.

The winter shawl is put aside,

and the last of March’s lace,

feeds the snow drop’s come.

Another year, is set in place,

for the living bones, of these weathered lives.

Land of loss and dreaming

Continents of patterned colour,

mapped to apples in the fruit bowl.

The kitchen is tidy for once.

While maggots,

turn to flies in the neighbours bins.

Front room view

of laundry horse

and TV catch up habits.

Our four small roomed romance.

Happy are us few,

To understand our meaning,

in this land of loss and dreaming.

An afternoon with you

A radio, not listen too,

though it plays like a wind up toy.

The cherry blossom falls to the floor

and browns at the edge by the the end of the day.

Fields roll away in their carpet greens and frog belly golds.

We slept for a while,

your head under my arm.

Side by side.

Nothing disturbed us all afternoon.

The wine was drunk,

and blushes saved

by thorn bushes and giggles.

On the downing, that folding sun,

as night came from behind,

we watched the last light’s tail.

Home awaited us.

Christopher Hopkins

I was born and raised in Neath, South Wales, surrounded by machines and trees, until my early twenties before moving to Oxford. I currently reside in Canterbury at the ripe old age of 41.

I enjoy read Heaney, Kevin Powers, Thomas (D & E) and Fred Voss amongst others.

Poetry has been my ladder out of some dark places.