The aconites are a necklace of bright beads
spilled down the hill, balled tight
against low sun glazed in opal grey.
They sketch contours for a map
of a golden land that will be breathed
into life by the work of time and heat.
Its skyward border is wind-blown rock
and tumbled wall. That’s where the past lives:
a different country you’re never sure you know
the name of; its ghosts. The woman in white
haunting the jewelled hill-top, calling to someone
she loved, someone she lost. As if she were
someone you never knew. As if death
only happened a long way off.
Your small fists are clenched. Let them open
like breath, like aconites – a short span of gold.
From: another wild, Hareshaw Press, 2014.