Living Yule
I was there, when men squatted on haunches
to chip flint and weave webs of belief
from seasons
and circles of death and growth.
The stink of boar-grease stiffening my braid
and blue whorls whispering under my skin
offered hope that darkness could end.
I put on homespun robes and tonsured my head
to walk the years when dogma stalked faith;
smoothing old ways and old faces to new shapes,
nudging builders to find safe spaces in stone arches.
Heedless of changed names for the turns of the year,
I watched the ploughman bury cakes for first cut,
crooned the song of seasons round to seed-time.
I’ve paced the years’ life and I am still here to die
ever again. Hide me beneath plastic and tinsel,
dress me in red, fatten my cheeks, sweeten my story;
the scent of old circles clings to the shade of man.
Angela France
Supply
More through a faint vibration of the air
on our skin than by the ear,
we feel his arrival and hurry out –
leave the unfamiliar house for a darkness that
to our urban eyes is solid pitch,
nothing close, no middle, no sense of distance,
just a freezing rural December night
and whatever we can feel beneath our feet.
And there he is, rear wheels slipping in the mud
frictionless as any proper god –
come with the intent of supplying us
with food and drink through the winter solstice.
Rotund, in the spill of his van’s light,
a pair of plump hands on hips, legs apart,
he stands there laughing at his predicament,
then punches away at the faint
signal on his phone but the place is too remote.
We offer to help him out –
begin to stumble to and fro in the lane,
in his rear-lights each like a crimson-faced clown –
trying gravel shovelled from the farm drive,
trying terracotta roof tiles
someone has tipped beside the bramble hedge.
We search for anything we might wedge
in the black slithering mess under his tyres,
straw, cardboard, logs, ironic prayers.
But the van still snarls like a tethered beast
and rocks to and fro like a helpless
child that fights the confines of its cradle . . .
Then he dismisses us with a smile.
He sends us back to light and warmth,
saying something like it’s what I’m here for.
We shut the door, relieved, to be honest.
We leave him to the closing vice of frost
and next morning scarves of mist
replace the dark that with him have vanished.
Wheel ruts, gravel, red tiles broken:
we laugh in daylight – did this really happen?
Outside, there is so little evidence to show.
Inside, shelves overflow.
Martyn Crucefix
*Angela France has had poems published in many of the leading journals, in the UK and abroad. She has an MA (with distinction) in ‘Creative and Critical Writing’ from the University of Gloucestershire and is studying for a PhD. Her second collection, Occupation is available from Ragged Raven Press and a third will be out with Nine Arches Press in 2011.
*Martyn Crucefix's prizes include a major Eric Gregory award and a Hawthornden Fellowship. He has published 4 collections, including An English Nazareth
(Enitharmon, 2004). His translation of Rilke’s Duino Elegies was
published by Enitharmon in 2006, shortlisted for the Popescu Prize for
European Poetry Translation. His new collection, Hurt, has just been published by Enitharmon.
