ISBN: 978-1-909357-96-9
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2015
This collection 'covers the ground' Ann Pilling has travelled since her last collection, not only on physical journeys but on journeys of the mind and the heart. So in addition to poems about remote places , there are poems about ageing and being young, about death and birth; there is much too about the natural world and how one is redeemed by its birds and its animals and by the sheer beauty of its landscapes.
Crème Brûlée
Tap goes the spoon's beak
on sugared onyx making white webs,
splinters crack open, sink into a honey sea
and we suck sweetness.
Behind drapes, frost skins the water meadows
where she used to skate,
town child testing her heel on a grubby pond.
Ageing hostess now, serving a chic dessert, she watches
mouths shut and open , sees
juices dribble down chins,
itches, as her mother did once, to wet
the clean corner of a hanky with her tongue
and make all clean.
For George in Scotland
Today I think mainly of trees because on waking
after your night journey you whispered
'Trees' in a voice soft as leaves.
Then we were out on the grass and I saw
your stubby toes dig deep in its ancient softness
milking the earth. The crag
was Chinese White that morning, a slip of sky
caught on it like a blue hanky while the trees
stood sentinel for you at the jaws of life
Later through a long window we saw
rabbits. Taking my hand you uttered
'Peter' in your light leaf voice.
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