Chalk

I am so used to the green, round hill,

which the Victorians built

their pitiful maze upon,

that I forgot to see it

until Autumn,

when the precipice set ablaze.

Then the chalky hill seemed,

suddenly to me,

Stone flat.

Grinning rocks

of impermeable knowledge

Forcing their impressions into my

sleeping face.

Knowledge given to me from four years,

Then set aside to wait,

the backdrop of existence.

Knowledge that all things,

As firm and stable as fathers’ hands,

Pass in and out of life.

The first time a mountain cried before me

It looked over his father’s grave,

I crushed my little face into the side of

His coal grey pocket.

I look up now and let my eyes swim

between blazing oaks and greying horizon,

wondering how to fasten your root,

My roots,

with words to this earth.

Write this path,

our path,

which in your arms,

my tiny feet swept above,

into white chalk.

White, white chalk,

The secret thoughts

beneath the hillside’s brutal face,

yields to rainwater.

Loose feathered bones

lie beneath the chalk base.

Rainwater is making a womb

of all buried earth.

The top of the hill engulfs me,

there is some spell here

which outfoxes fixing words,

stops humans’ eyes from seeing

nocturnal hares,

tricks me into naming darkness death,

Stops me. Listening out for danger,

I’ve forgotten my guard over you, Father.

The best way home is back

along the river cuddling into the hillside.

We, like abandoned rabbit holes,

Have marked it.

Our family’s infancy wears around it,

as the indentation of cattle hooves

draw long and sloping grooves.

Maybe, Father, this will have to do.

I am heading back down the rough path,

which waits just outside the city,

The lights of home ahead,

The hillside

at my back.