INTAGLIO

The ashes fade in a day,

but not the other lines:

incised deeper year on year

for forty days,

forty shortening nights.

By the end of Lent

the glaze of guilt

is craquelured.

There’s foxing

on the contours of the soul,

a mildew tang

where etched remorse

has cracked and bled

like the head that once…

Great Fast days

engrave like pock marks

on our hearts

in a slow drip,

                     drip

of shame –

intaglio,

long after

the ashes fade.

LENGTHENING DAYS

The days are slow to lengthen:

a stilted March of snow,

and thaw and snow,

scarcely a boundary

between the white

of mountain and sky,

the silence of earth and heaven.

We are in the desert:

thin grains of snow

as countless as the crumbs of sand,

ice-melt scorching

our tongues,

held out for chrism;

the land buried alive.

We are hungry for spring:

for an end to privation,

for feasting and comfort,

for lengthening days –

for snow melted and gone;

the worshipful warmth of the sun;

the season of singing to come.

PLAITING THE SAND

Our only tool –

an arrowhead

of mica-crusted slate,

crystal sand crunching under its heft.

You wielded it

in spirals and I replied

with a triskele.

You trumped

with a double headed bird,

looping leviathan and

zoomorphic trinity.

We plaited the sand with

lines, signs of past

etched for a while,

beside a thirsty tide;

sky hungry for memory.

Later we bought a charm

from a silversmith by the shore;

a lotus leaf

carved on abbey stones

that stand –

                        looking out