the graveyard is closed
and ghosts walk down narrow paths
that lead to glory

the path through the marsh
leads me deeper and deeper
a sinking feeling

I have to turn back
pick my way along the path
already travelled

It was no secret what was happening… It was like killing rabbits… But people are not rabbits. Even after the war, when they could see that the survivors were not in fact rabbits but people, they still felt in their hearts that the dead ones had been rabbits. – Lionel Davidson, Making Good Again

Surrounded by poetry
pegged up prettily
to lure passers by

and in some cases translated
from the original pain
with killing pictures

the holocaust discussion group
faces eternal questions.

Did it? Do we have the right?
Could they? Can we? How long?
and 
Did people really think
they were rabbits?

There may be a more sinister explanation, but
it is too late to ask questions,
and too early:

we crouch helplessly round a serious table 
with personal pots of tea 
and strained faces.

Only the poetry makes sense,
and not many people read poetry
nowadays

Poetry repeats itself.
It has to:
nobody listens.

He watches as the shadowy ship on the horizon
beyond the blue-grey house
disappears into the Blakeney mist

sinks soundlessly into the distant pit
where there is no sun,
and is consumed by your tears

Just another waterfall
in the story told
between your sheets

as if all waterfalls were not miracles
and all ships do not continue to exist
beyond your fears

He waits for the horizon to reimagine itself
in uncreated light
sees figures walk on what had seemed to be water

and you out there like a sunset
unique, shimmering,
riding the waves

while wild barley lines the inland verges
ripe but ungathered,
way beyond temptation

The night is deadly quiet,
still as a dead man’s breath:
life teeters on the empty edge,
and those of us who live in dark places
become invisible, 
even when the light returns

In times past the twisted paths,
the blind cliff edges and wrong turns
have filled our dreams:
now we search our faded memories
and find nothing but flowers,
a house on an island, a view of the sea

I muse on all your deeds,
I consider the works of your hands

no king is saved
by having tall armies
no mighty man
by great strength or the power
of a hundred horses

you throw bright stars
making patterns in heaven
while angels laugh
and we play with creation,
rejoice in your glory

Hills stretch away into the beckoning distance
harsh and unknown
intriguing and shapely

I wander among them
looking for steep paths,
that precise point where land gives way
reluctantly to sky

touching the forgiving rocks
that beckon to me

I am seduced, gone astray:
I feel the curves,
but you find me here as always

I hear your voice
when the sun arrows down
or the moon arrives too soon

You shade my naked skin,
my exposed shoulders:
I go out and come in
through darkened doors

You give me new questions,
old magic:
a safe place in the wilderness

(Based loosely on Psalm 121)

you lead me to pasture
across the soft sands where
I do not want to go

where the water is not still
where tides flow in and out
but the pathway is right

I see the pasture ahead,
the island shaped just for me
beyond the valley

yes, I am comforted:
I run towards the future

it is your island:
I will stay there
with you

(for Mary Wilson)

Out in the snow
I hear Mary singing, 
keeping everything together as always –
multiplying by three,
then dividing
while misty men threw ice balls from on high –
so white, so dark

So long ago, too,
juggling in the far north, 
those cold, cold winters
like Fargo around the stage
in and out of fantasy
pursued by a bear

Where did our love go? 
Out in the snow, Mary,
your beautiful, tidal songs
your mouth like a river
your smile like a secret story…

You drag me back down that slippery slope
to somewhere I might have been

You were there all right, but was it me?
Was it really love?

I see the tracks 
between the graves
and a light in the sky

Bodies make strangers of us as we age:
we stoop, whisper, stumble and grow impatient quickly
but in our eyes the real soul lurks:
unexpected snowflakes of wit

Each one different, though:
in my aunt’s face – unseen for years –
suddenly my mother lives 

She is on the brink, almost emerging
in the straight voice,
the call to rearrange the world nearby,
forcing it to make sense

She sits by the sea, where it is too cold
and asks for more light,
yet she is not there to be comforted

as she could never be comforted
because the world can never be remade:
it is always fading away

And so this Cape Town evening slips into haze across the bay
and the mountain becomes invisible
like heaven, or regions beyond
age and beauty

Walking through water
beneath the holy city,
she feels the weight of the past
wash against her shoulders

This is the way in, but
it is not obvious:
sand and shingle beneath her feet
remind her how close the desert is 

Immersed in sin
she strains on
toward the sacred garden
and the redeeming hill

reaching out to the sun,
those streets of burning gold