Back again
This poem is a sort of expansion of 'Aviation Age', I suppose. I'm in full sing-song mode and hearing in octameter, so I wouldn't post it for workshopping here. Phil Wood felt 'foreign lands' worked better in the sonnet than the revelation that we just took the train up to Shropshire (where L. was born). In the moment at the trig-point, I thought it was over.
Long Mynd Lament
One hand is warm around my own; the other starts to roam
upon the chilly trig-point plate that maps our one-week home,
our hills transformed to triangles with numbers at their feet
and tiny type for epic plots and forts and Satan’s seat.
And how I'd hoped to hold his heart within this otherworld,
where sheep sing softly on their paths through bracken tips unfurled,
the crows rejoice to feel the sun caress their velvet wings,
and ponies prance with air and earth around the fairy rings.
His fingers, fiery on my contours, whiten on the chart,
while buzzards wheel and wail and watch for prey to prise apart;
unseen yet felt, our homeland, with its streets of staring eyes,
where Sweetheart twists to slut wherever rampant rumour flies.
And how I fear his fall from all the heaven in these hills,
to all things age appropriate, the final strike that kills,
another woman, suitable in terms of county town,
their photograph in Cotswold Life, black tie and floor-length gown.
His soulscape shifts as heather hangs in needle-swirls of rain;
tomorrow looms, a chill return upon the southbound train,
so summer cools, his nature turns, towards a wintry change,
and silently I weep the loss of high romantic range.
💔