Evenings

I arrived home this afternoon
to find you already back from the park.
I showered with our playful little girl
while you made my dinner.

Refreshed, I ate from a plate you had washed,
in a lounge you had cleaned,
while you turned town her bed
and warmed her milk.

As she drank, I watered our patchwork lawn
and the applause of flowers you had potted.
Then later, behind the curtains
I read her the tale of the nutbrown rabbit,
as you talked to the TV and marked my papers.

The sun bowed, the cool air came in.
I tapped in my numbers, as you stretched out.

And then we were together.
You reclined in the easy chair
and I hunched on the sofa,
over a notepad, straining to see
in the dim light of our evening.

The Pavlovian

This morning I am in the woods.
An odd tribesman in pseudo-fleece jacket and boots,
wanting an inside view of things
Rigid timber poles of Scots Pine
stand motionless,
while their lofty crowns sway

in a breeze unfelt down here.
The ocean in a sea-shell.
Squirells – with so much to get through today-
dart erratically through branches, over ground,
as if trapped in a glass bubble,
frantically searching for an exit.

Hammers twitching inside a jazz piano.
I was going to tell you
about this brittle brown carpet
of dried fern.
How it blows away as dust
under my weight.

About the flirtation of the sun and shadow
and the tension in the spaces in between.
But the air is suddenly salted
with the dry smokiness of bacon,
crackling and sizzling from our small cabin.
I become a fish on a hook,

going belly up,
no more to fight a losing battle.
I toss my guns in the dirt,
clasp my hands behind my head,
fingers intertwined
and prepare to sign a full –
very un-poetic – confession.

An Apology

All that remains in this garden
of the pond I exhumed last spring
is a bare sandy circle
edged by a flat tessellation
of trapezoidal stones.

Squatting on the rim of that ring today
was a frog, all horny eagerness and expectation,
oily wetsuit sparkling in the sun,
who clearly hadn't heard.

A slow, deep breath in
through a pair of forward mounted blow-holes,
eyes slowly closing as he savours the moment.
Then the twin pneumatic pistons of his legs
sent him high into the air.
All limbs extended into a very X-rated X.

I can hardly speak of the disappointment
I felt for that seemingly insignificant amphibian.
The guilt I felt as the soft silver keel of his underbelly
hit the dry gravel with a dull thud,
rather than a long awaited wet splash,
followed by the pure chimes of water droplets
falling back to ripple the surface.



How could I have known,
that as I stood waist deep in silt
under new green leaves, bailing years of neglect,
that my actions would bring such sadness.

So then what then of the lawn,
lovingly mowed just this morning?

The neighbour, hauling old concrete
who I did not stop to help?

And what of this pen,
frantically scrambling along
the blood red veins of this page?

Beverley Westwood

On a summers afternoon, pinned behind the wheel,
feeling entombed by a grey vinyl dashboard,
I decided on more pleasing route home.
The road through wood, field and pasture.

Tree after tree passed on both sides,
heavy with foliage, so dense in the sunlight.
And the parallel lines of the road,
now bridle reigns pulling me in

through the rise and fall of a meadow covered
in buttercups, spreading their colour to the horizon.
Scattered in the fluttering grass
lay cows by the dozen.

The ancient beasts were down on their bellies,
heads up looking on down the road.
As if seeing into a future, that to the rest of us
will always remain shrouded.

Sparrows (Haiku)

Brown bomber jackets
In your high garden hanger
A cheerful squadron.

Day Spa

To finally close the door on it all,
albeit only for a short while,
and to step barefoot onto the wet tiles
of a room holding only heat and steam.

Then to sit on a hard marble slab,
breathing in, breathing it out.
Every weeping pore a hissing valve,
releasing a pressure that had been
building for too long.

And later, reclined in muted light by a pool,
I wonder about all of you here with me.
So seemingly deranged and confused
in towel robes and damp slippers.

Those of you managing to stay awake
stare in apparent desperation at an
empty space just beyond your noses.

But this is not a sanatorium from history’s dark pocket.
We are just tough little kernels,
ground down by the pestle and mortar of life.

And for a moment today, we all - for a
little while at least
felt better.