THE LIGHT MIGRANT Poem by Linda France

If a plant grows towards blueness,
the light it needs to feed on,
it's dark that lets it flower - the far red
of dusk, a switch to set day's edge.

Your skin is clock and calendar,
gauging the length of night you need,
the silence of what may remain
unsaid and slake your deepest root.

Ten thousand miles away,
your body remembers the weight
of the muddy field you left behind,
weathered stones, monochrome;

the brisk omens of sky-changes:
a bowl you know in your bones
if it's full or empty, scattered
with northern stars, the moon's salt eye.

Home's heathery weft unravelled,
you are exposed - infra-red,
ultra-violet - bleached by extrovert
sunlight. A flower transplanted,

earthed in fire, not knowing which senses
disclose where to lean, when to open.