A Body Of Knowledge Poem by Charlotte Peters Rock

Square man
rounded by a patterned jumper
shades of brown and yellow

Large hands..could have wielded
a spade in fields his father..
his grandfather laboured in

Soft elongated fingers
muscles trained to hold a pen
a pencil and a piece of paper

Irish connection lips
moist softened voice fluttering
spare description of agonies
-
Children walking naked to
bones of children mutilated
machine-murdered

Shiny golden trinkets plundered
blood sullying imagination
tender arms of innocence

This mother of mine
more loving than discerning
her biscuit tin held crumbs

of words and pictures
memories I smile about
Life moves in one direction

only down My father
from a bicycle
me on the cross-bar

learning how to balance
how to shrink from
strong pedalling legs..

reaching nearly ninety
shrinking out of life..
his plaited cross floating on the pool
-
Stroking her mother's memories..age infirm
intention bivouacked on distant hills
sending hyacinth ice-cream

message rising in the knotted blood
scenting pathways flooding through blockages
That ice upon her tongue

Hugging unprotected bones
struggling fearful in the night
six long years before she died
-
Sadness floats on incense sweet
seeping into silent spaces
bleaker memories shared

fine grief maps about eyes
in the sober crowd
blues and greys..the black of death

insistent as drums beating in
camps of enemies bivouacked
each night on closer hills

Murmuring tight-jawed litany
mechanical as nuns at Early Offices
purple priests swinging censers
comes at last - hand-shaking
under the lych-gate

19Apr1996 CPR