Mountain

Winter: Arrival

1

the day

the day? the day that I came we came somehow I was mist from a can and molecule mashed and spray that day the day that I came

the day the townscape landscape landshape changed to liquid and flowed in rivers and roads, rode ripples and rose like a blink on the road in mist and in rain a mistake on the day we came

the day that we came out of where out of who we have been I was frost on the trees you were lost like their leaves and frozen and free

the day the day drove on M-ways and A-roads and laybys and byways to doorbells and hallways and stairwells and wallways we arrived in a dust of vacant possession to say here at last and at least we can say we are here

this is the day where we spilled from the clouds on the hills when we filled up the shrill walled slim noised house in its stillness making shrieks like far shaken marshbirds as they scaped in the flowerstalk air where we came

and the day when we came with our load came the blend of the road with a home an abode where we slowed and the road closed behind

yes the day yes today we have come to what place and what space at what price and harm and hell how the sun kills the sky and the whitespeck mounting mountain farm and christ what grace fills this place stills this day the day we came. 

2

the day that I came came I that day, the

door reverts to numbers, my face becomes

the name that even neighbours cannot know,

the mountain shadows slip at dusk with all

the plain air, plane air, plein air city stare

that faced me, placed me in their world till now.

people pour from doors to applaud the home

we’ve bought; they muzzle round like a family

bereavement, forming final memories

of features they still cannot recognise.

the city was a bow-tied phone-tied low-

tide gnome, my diary was numbers, the dates

all names, and there no face was ever new,

no unknown place was strange, no entry the same.

tonight the doorways sprout with neighbours out

to catalogue our lives, executors

of a doubtful will, executioners

they seem of our still doubtful wills; inside

at last we fight to find ourselves behind

the numbered door which beats with urgent dawn

enquiries who we are, and why and what

new indifference these digits will inspire.

The neighbours, chained to garden railings, fix

us now for their feminine cause, beeing

to prove the point of being’s being seen ...

“like being free,” we figured, moved to be

the people we would like reframed, when

came I that day, the “the day that I came”. 

3

The day that I came, “come in,” says the gate,

an arm open wide, “this way,” says the path

leading on like wishes, up to the hearth,

the last owner’s ashes lying in state.

“Cover the floors” snort the boards; “hard to” laugh

the carpets, and “steady that edge” swears a chair

as the wardrobe wedges itself unawares

across the stairs, parting bedrooms and bath

from the tidal arrivals that still find air

to displace: “quick” click the fixtures; “one more?”

explore the storage jars in place before

the forks, the saucepans and the earthenware.

The furniture shifts through chaos door by door,

changes place and order in order to lose

us thinking it might be letting us choose. 

4

“The day that I came here,” you said, the day

before we came away, “I cried to come

so far from home.” We’d dragged through space like strays

from squares and yards, by foot, by rule of thumb,

we’d measured our trail in smells of the slum,

in bags, in cars, in vain to rebegin.

Today our home has filled a van and some

new distant hope. “My love, please come on in.

It’s the day that I came, again,” you sing. 

5

the day that I came to live with the mountain

will start with the end of another day

a thousand billionth time; I sink below

horizons into sleep, below the line

of hill and sky that lies on everything

to come, while space and time at last stand still.

yet, at once, an ice hard sun smashes through

the pane inside my eyes; tiny fragments

of morning light strike off glazed rooftops,

flash back across windows sharpened with frost.

once I had time. the readiness was all;

I pushed back deadlines, made space for the news,

waited for paper boys weighted by Sundays,

and read them all through till Thursday or more,

and learned all there was to know about war.

now the sun snipes at the uncurtained glass,

and picks off houses in steps up the hill;

it raises its sights on barnyards and fields

and takes out one last human speck – a house

high up with whitewashed walls hiding in trees.

I reach for a watch and wind it declining past

the passing of the year, past the starting,

past arrival and all that passed before,

before the day I came to live beneath

the mountain, at the end of another day.

Spring: Possibilities »