Injecting ice
into the crack of dawn,
the east wind knocks twice
on my eyelids,
but no-one is in

This short poem was commended in the Norwich Writers’ Circle open competition this year and appears in their anthology

When you reach that place
you are translated
and I can no longer read you

A tightrope walker has been at work,
running the risk of getting the balance wrong
and falling

or a ferryman,
bringing you across rough seas
for whatever price is right

maybe an alchemist,
changing you from clay to gold
in little more than an instant

Now I am left with a commentary
that tries to unravel you
in my own language

tries to describe the unknowable journey
and the place you reached

I can no longer read you for myself
you are somewhere else
somewhere full of ecstasy
and empty of explanation

It is good to see you there

In the wild land
between Ben Avon and Gairnshiel
between black snow and white wind
there is a passing place

where spirit brushes flesh
clouds shift shapes
and brown is the colour
of my true love’s eyes

In the heather, footprints can just be seen
reaching upwards, almost hidden:
the road like a juggler
throws, then catches

nine times out of ten,
and I keep passing.

This is the place:
enchantment is a wound
that reopens.

I pass again.

The precise shape of the star
and the way it moved,
backwards and forwards,
does not concern the wise,

who love
unexplained light

Private browsing –
examining conjunctions,
comets and dwarfs –
tempts the unwary

into disintegrating time
and again

A baby can throw the best-laid plans
into disarray,
reaching for empty hands,
hoping for gold

Out on a limb,
like desperate travellers looking for somewhere to stay
like lonely shepherds in the dark
like a young girl suddenly with child
like wise men laughed at, following a wild idea

we are lost in a shapeless world
waiting for something to happen
out of step with time

unaware of the resting place
and the angels
trying to see through the pain
something in the shape of a star

until at the perfect moment, just off the beat,
the sound of singing
or a knock on the door,
a safe delivery:

as if we had found something lost
like a coin or a sheep
or someone sleeping in a field:

someone who, on closer inspection,
appears to be us

Here in the centre is the River Jordan,
boundary between past and future,
war and peace:
deep enough

and there, in the same picture,
the Dead Sea,
white like a sepulchre

If you look closely you can make out
a path going down
from Jerusalem to Jericho

and a Samaritan
off to one side

There are churches in Bethany,
old and new, like caves
for resurrection

Through the mists of time
the walls of a monastery
and St John, gazing upwards

seeing something
outside the landscape
away from the dusty Judean desert

away from Bethlehem,
away from the blinding light
away from the voice

that bursts out of the picture
and at the same time into it

The dove is hard to see
but the baptism remains,
undeceiving the eye

The train from Barcelona has arrived:
if you look through the window, you can see its sleek
but obvious outlines

It stands there openly

We will be leaving soon:
we will be on our way, and later
after the scenery flies by,
we will arrive

and the weather will be different

They are building more flats by the railway,
and the buffet car has run out of milk:
it is not like English trains

It is a high-speed train, and it
moves quickly

What seems to be happening
is surely happening
and will probably happen again

If it does, we will tell you

In the tunnels it is dark:
outside, the sun casts shadows

And if something else is happening
that we cannot see
we do not speak about it

even if it seizes us by the throat
and shakes us till we scream

Is joy or terror passing by?
Is there an eagle in the mist
or a serpent in the falling rain?

No-one knows

Now we are nearly at Narbonne,
and most of us are asleep

It is normal:
it is what happens

A bluebell has flowered on my parents’ grave
cradled by a caressing sun
and guarded by squirrels

Now I know that you are still alive
I can rest easy:
even the naked torsos and shiny beer cans
of oblivious passers-by
no longer provoke dead anger in me

and the apparent absence of God
does not deceive me

Hidden beneath these shadowy rows of tottering tombstones
is pure gold
the essence of something unseen
in ordinary air

righteousness dancing
in the warmth of a friendly universe,
vital signs,
raw and unmistakeable

ready to break out
and expose the facade,
destroy the conspiracy,
make everything clear

In these soft, grey, collapsing January days
where dawn and dusk meet on main street at noon
too weak, too low to draw their weapons
and life seeps away
like air from a pricked balloon,

the fire fails:
faint flames lick the edges
of lime logs, traces of orange
in the colluding coals

There was a blaze here once,
not quite a furnace –
no iron forged, no tons of nails for tall
adventuring ships –
but enough to warm a visitor or two

You held out your hands sometimes and felt
some subtle change in temperature

Now I close one eye as I write:
mist spills uneasily out of my dreams,
dancing through my bones,
piercing or tickling my spirit

interrupting the invisible sun
while a cold wind across the cemetery
digs deeper

keeping the fire going
or putting it out

Failing Fire won the 2010 Norwich Writers’ Circle Open Poetry competition and appeared in the anthology with three other of my poems (and 66 by other people). It is available at www.norwichwriters.org.uk/poetry/anthology.htm