This poem was written for my brother’s birthday on 7 January 2020. There was a spring-like feel to the day, but of course, 2020 unfolded in ways we could not have predicted. However, the return of Spring was not affected.
The Dark
Taking the long lane down to the sea,
the Cape, The Brisons and Cot Valley,
a birthday walk, the children running on ahead,
the grownups talking in their groups, stitched in zigzags
by the dog, the winter sky a bleached-out grey,
the wind above the headland wild, but in the air
a touch of Spring, perhaps, too soon to say,
the bracken mulched in all the rains of late,
the little stream that cut this path in spate,
those wilding roots in water, branches bare,
but, closer up, see buds already there
bundled tightly, ready to explode,
just waiting for a let up in the cold,
and then we see them everywhere,
camouflaged in trees, there, in the forks of twigs,
like seeing the backstage set-up of a trick,
or like those films where someone’s led
into a darkened room and told to wait,
the gravity of living forms half-felt,
compressed in silent shifts of black on shade,
then, close at hand, a whisper, someone coughs
and laughs, a snowdrop flowers, a robin
spills the secret in a burst of song,
and everything’s surprised by sudden light,
so these familiar faces, family and friends,
gathered here together once again to mark
the passage of imaginary years,
all transfigured, all made precious by the dark.
7 January 2020