THE WIDOW Poem by John Glenday

In the house where the smoke slides down the lum,
She watches the clock compact its tensing coils;
Reeling time back to its hidden spool, as she waits
For her drowned man to be ferried to the sea.

"Where is the ship which will sail for the jug-lipped storm
Stern first, and the sea's warp perfect through the bow?"
The tide shrugs shoulders, toys with a captive moon,
As the jetsam springs triumphant to the swell.

She remembers when she was old, and growing young,
While the stream climbed skywards on the brackened hill,
How she dreamed of a place where the glassy threads
Unwound to a single strand, in an unreflecting pool;

Where the butterworth shyly retracted its frail, blue face,
And the thirsty moss flourished, drawing in endless seas.