Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 3

Things I will always love

For the dverse prompt. I used this painting by Paul Klee for the piece I wrote this morning. I think it needs another viewing.

Things I will always love

A mesh of stars, bright mirror-scales, a fish
of pale silver light, moon-swimming
in a silent pool, a fallen piece of sky, a wish,

your eyes that shine with inner light,
even when they close in sleep,
or weep, in the darkest tender night.

and a second one because I wrote two.

Things seen twice

A lake, a puddle, distant placid sea,
the burnished brass of a commemorative plaque,
eyes that hold mine in torchlight’s glare,
a comet pastiched in firework flare,
this world seen twice, its face tossed back,
an echo, mirror, of what would like to be.

Fishbird myths

‘

It’s a purple lie,’ she said, watching evening clouds drench the flame of sunset. ‘Nothing lives in that hue not even when it leaches into the lake water where mermen carve their names in the rocks.’
I listen to the murmur of her words and the woodpecker-tapping beneath the smooth oilskin.
‘They’re creating,’ I said,’ like all men do, stone feathers. Will they ever fly?’
She laughed. ‘Only the sun births firebirds and wraps them in eggshell blue, and moon births silver water, where fish glide in winged suspension. Meet me here at indigo midnight, and I’ll show you.’

Ariadne refuses Dionysus

I had another look at the Oracle this evening. I thought she had something else to say.

Ariadne refuses Dionysus

He plucked his music from the wind and waves
and sang with the blackbird’s voice,

on a rock lapped by the sea. He played
as night fell and spelled a sleep for all but she,

never doubting he would take her up
like an osprey leashed and belled,

but as the stars pricked in the sky,
her eyes were turned to home.

She saw his waiting women in the sea mists
rising, his hair that floated dark as kelp,

and on the silver golden sand she stood
and sang her own enchanted song

to Moon, the mother of the sky,
who laid a path across the waves

and gave her feet light foaming wings,
until she reached the homeward shore.

Hedge ghosts

This week has been National Hedgerow Week in the UK. The photos are of the bank and ditch along our lane that this year have been left alone by the municipal hedge trimmer. The hedge is the western boundary of our bit of land.

Hedge ghosts

Hedgerows, no longer rows,
soft angles joining field edges,
lane-lining, wind-breaking,

a world of nest-building, burrowing, lying low,
festooned with rose and bramble,
plum blossom, the scent of honey,

gone when tractors ploughed
that extra furrow, stole autonomy
from parcelled patchworks,

leaving bones, haggard, stripped bare,
fluttering in the wind from the east,
that blows winter all the round year.

Food for a sauvageonne

Food for a sauvageonne

Sitting on the well,
enthroned amid cricket chirr,
above the evening damp where shadows grow,
the little feral cat waits.

Meadow jungle is dense,
the deep fissured earth
a labyrinth of mouse safe havens,
hunting is hard these spring days.

Yellow eyed, méfiante, she waits
until the human has gone before she eats.

I expect no gratitude
and she gives none,
if not that she waits,
on the well,
just for me.

Madness

Madness

Still, be still, amid the spring folly
of sprouting sun, mirrored moon
and the sweet song of running water,
bird-ripple in dappled trees.

Let darkness prowl the night-clinging woods,
where stars blink in deep-sea meres,
and banished winter flicks its catfish tail,

sinks into gullet-dark mud, all trace lost
in the summer blizzard dance
of may, damsel and dragon.

Spring melancholy

Spring melancholy

All leafing now in spring, the trees,
Their green haze marks the year that grows,
All leafing now. In spring, the trees,
Their blossom white’s, stripped by the breeze,
And scattered where the river flows,
Where dead leaves lie, and autumn flees.
All leafing now in spring, these trees’
Green haze will fade as this year grows.

Honey birds

They sat around the honey pot, as golden light crawled over the sill like bees. He held out a hand and she clasped it, soft brown skin, the hairs like sundust. Over the sill, watersound ran in rippling cascades on its way to the distant sea. Birds carried the wash-crash on their black wings, white wings, purpling the hills with the roistering song of mussels.
Gold, she said, we have it in buckets.
I can hear it singing, he said, in the deep trees.
Orioles looped lemon-yellow loops to settle, quivering on the honey pot’s lip.
Look, she said, butterflies.

Another spring dance

Another spring dance

Spring sap and juices
sing in owl-dark night,
and vixen-bark,

pulsing through the last
turquoise light in the sky,
ensnaring

in wild Maenad dance
of wind-shaken boughs,
moonstruck Venus.

The note

A sketch of the opening of a story.

The girl who wasn’t really her friend had excused herself and gone to see why her mother was calling, leaving Mathilde alone in the big room with half-closed shutters and the distant sound of a lawn mower. Ample sofas and armchairs seemed to hold their ample breath. A vase of cut flowers whispered, don’t touch. Mathilde gave the dainty tables and antique bibelots a wide berth, and wandered over to the bookcase.

It was just for show, she decided, nothing in it was intended to be read, all tooled leather bindings, gold-embossed, probably first editions, immensely valuable. She ran her finger along the spines, hesitated at a slim volume in dark walnut leather. The book fell into her hand unasked. It was cool, smooth and had no title. A diary, she thought and opened it. Not a diary. There was a fly leaf with a single word printed in an archaic font. Verdiana.

Her lips mouthed the word, and the dust motes in the rare beams of light danced. She shivered and snapped the book closed. In the movement to replace it on the shelf, a folded slip of paper dropped out from between the end papers. She picked it up, slowly turned it over. A name was written on the outer side. Her name, Mathilde. She moved into the light, curiosity overcoming the creeping sense of unease. The thin paper was yellowed, almost translucent, and allowed itself to be unfolded with reluctance. The note was just six words of faded black ink.

Meet me at the jetty tonight.

There was no signature, simply a scrawled doodle of something that might have been a rose. Mathilde read the words again, heard a voice deep inside her ear, a voice that made her shiver, in fear or excitement, she couldn’t tell. She replaced the note and slipped the volume back into its place.

‘I’ll go,’ she said aloud to the empty room and the beam of sunlight. The dust motes leapt and span, and from the garden, beyond the shuttered windows, a jay laughed.