Ghazal: Trace
Nothing’s better than our laughter, on earth,
daughter, Mum, me, in stitches, dafter, on earth.
Make every second count, the years stride on
as time’s a serial grafter, on earth.
Night falls quickly, with the fluttering bats
and nothing could be softer, on earth.
A mulberry squashes, hard to pick, it drops,
leaves a blood red stain thereafter, on earth.
If this is how our floating world is made
then who’s presiding, the drafter, on earth?
Could there be heaven later, when we’re gone,
or just us, raising rafters, on earth?
Nothing could be sweeter in night air
than jasmine’s trace hereafter, on earth.
And, an aside you almost hear, Janet,
is it memory lingering after, on earth?
Janet Hatherley is a London teacher who has recently come back to poetry. She has published in The Lake, The Copperfield Review, has work forthcoming in Obsessed With Pipework and has won third prize in the 2015 Barnet Poetry Competition.