Kathleen Jowitt

A heart's an awkward thing to wrap:
the one end softly squashy,
the other gimlet sharp.
I try. The point rips through the paper;
the string slips off the curves. Well.
Here's my heart, then; you'd better
take it as it is, and know,
at least, what you're getting.

Rainbow in the east,
where I am bound and came from:
fragile miracle.

A living creature, myriad-tongued and -eyed,
We marched, claiming an usurped city,
Our wings of red and purple, our feet
Steady and angry, our voices
Calling, Raphael, for those who care.
Michael: we were fighting!
Gabriel: did they hear?

Hush. The dawn is breaking on the hills.
The air is chill. My love is calling:
Awake. Arise. Come with me. Time to go.
It is time to go, and you must leave
with the daisies closed against the dew,
with the young green shoots piercing the earth,
the pigeons burbling and blackbird's song,
and the candles on the chestnut trees
to light you on your way.

You dug the ground; you sowed the seed,
watered the shoot, and saw
the growth all but imperceptible:
a bud, a leaf - furled - opening - open -
Come away.
Leave the fruit. It is not yours to pick.

Follow me now beyond the garden.
Come and see.
I have a lovely place to show you.
Though here the flowers bloom and fruit trees
scatter blossom,
walk this path with me:
come away.



(I wrote this a couple of years ago; it's one of the things that has emerged from the boxes in the course of unpacking after the move. I've tidied it up a bit but it's largely as it was.)

Well, you know what it's like,
having a mother with Causes -
Or, I don't know, maybe you don't,
maybe you never gave up your Sundays,
stood out in the rain with a banner,
cried out in the streets for your rights -
or someone else's -
Anyway, mine had plenty:
She was always out there,
smashing the patriarchy, putting down
the mighty from their seat,
that sort of thing. 'Jesus,' she said,
'a woman's body's her own, her soul's her creator's.
Don't you forget it.' Or, 'What this
country needs is revolution.
Lift up the humble.' She thought big.
So I was surprised when, at the wedding,
she said to me, 'They're out of wine.
What are you going to do about it?'
'Mother,' I said, 'this isn't the time.'
Meaning, of course, that I had bigger fish to fry.
'Jesus,' she said, 'there's one thing
you haven't yet learned about changing the world.
You begin where you are
and you use what you've got.'
So I did. That's where it started.

We'll walk again.
We've known, between us,
sickness and fear, the madness
that makes friendship loneliness,
mislaid vocations, learned to love,
never quite forgotten that we walked
or that we'll walk again.

We'll walk again:
drink wine that springs from roadside fountains,
meet angels, know them by
their wire-spoked wing-umbrellas,
understand the Incarnation
eating sardines on Maundy Thursday,
hear the cock crow mid-Mass, standing
out where hands weren't washed or wine poured,
toil across endless dusty plains,
follow the stars spread westwards, seen once,
follow the subtle trail of golden shells,
wonder how your great-grandfather
walked almost all the way up Everest
(and then, more, down again)
while your feet dissolve in friction.
I'll turn out, another seven times,
not to be Irish,
disappoint another seven bands of pilgrims;
we'll walk west,
catch wandering horreos,
sing psalms in kitchens so new,
so ill-equipped,
there's nothing else to do there,
we'll walk,
arrive,
hug, disbelieving, in the square,
pat St James
(timidly)
on his shoulder,
linger...

It won't, of course, be like that this time,
but even so, we'll walk.