Pentimento & palimpsest
Need alters how I see things
To smother dullness under the hot metal
of discovery
To give it an edge! Ken this
and the hard slap of wave and sail –
the pause before the engagement
I am the old woman who sings
flushed but calm enough
To force the flatness of a bygone age
up and up in brilliant knotted folds
an origami statue, now
perhaps an ornithopter or an owl
The lines reform
The poem is a queue
It is a brief piece of logic tilted against
the pressing and persistent is of essence
The red of the horse harness
the gold of the headdress
all will be re-sown, re-shown, cut
carefully and edited, my ancestors’ bones
are reclaimed
tamped back into the ground
to grow fruit trees and grandchildren
Seas die and flint is born
Flint is knapped and trees are felled
Islands die and people take to boats
Boats sink and brave souls raid the wreck
It all is written over in the end
Earth, sky and water queue for the last word
