She said,
Zim is too hard for you to want to return
But hard is what Zim is or haven’t you learned
That we are house made of rock no mortar
A land that is landlocked – no water
And I was born from this – screaming
The air flowing between my lungs
Is the same wind blowing between the rungs
Of the rocks of our Great Stone Monument
And I was made from this – teeming
Within my veins, is blood pulling as if by reins
To see the world and all it contains,
But I know how to return,
What it is to want familiar ground for your remains
So maybe, when God made you
He took the fine sand of a dusty beach
And when he made me
Igneous rock was all he had within reach
And he strung me together with fear and wonder
So that no matter where I wander
Just as the tide turns, I have learned that
Apart from where I stand,
There are parts of who I am
That I carry within my brittle bones
Like echoes of sticks and stones
Like beacons – leading home

Time spent walking the earth wears down the sole

Dust
Whilst packing the last of our prized possessions,
Moving things we thought we’d planted,
And letting emptiness reprise it’s position,
We turn our home into a mere house
and I come across an old pair of shoes
They are well-worn and from the process of so becoming,
are worn down. Scuffed at the front, warm to the feel,
And torn at the heel
I try to remember them being new,
And all the places they’ve been since then
It amuses me to think that shoes, having tongues but no eyes,
cannot tell of all the places they’ve seen
So, these shoes, that have moved me through every plausible place,
I now remove to put them away
In so doing, I catch sight of the heel and it’s curvature strikes me,
I am wondering where the rubber that had been this sole has gone
In leaving it’s imprint on the earth,
Did it also leave little pieces of itself behind,
Like calling cards for the ground?
And all that displaced dust?
Did it creep into the grooves of the sole so that,
Knowingly or not, I brought little pieces of everywhere,
Here, to our home.
Which, once these shoes are packed, will become only a house?

In them I’ve walked so many miles, so many miles…

​

Time spent walking the earth wears down the soul

​

Home
We’ve packed everything that needed packing,
And stacked every box that needed stacking,
And as strangers gut my home,
I say as little as possible because every sound now carries an echo
And every echo makes t harder to let go and realise,
This is no longer my place,
As silence takes hold of every audible space
I stand looking at the thin film of dust on all the surfaces,
You grab my arm and we remark together how it settled so easily on our dreams
Like little pieces of everywhere stifling little pieces of us
Dreams die slow deaths and there is nothing gentle about their passing,
All it takes for a pen to bleed is, in the right place,
A touch and a little pressure,
As tears blur my vision, I think perhaps my soul is much like a pen
You grab my arm again and tell me,
“It’s time”
You are not wrong,
We have filled the quota of memories to be made here
And it’s a long way to the new house,
Between here and there are so many miles, so many miles….

Word built like granite
Granting more of take than give
Made with more of die than live
Leaving bitter after-taste
After every time I depart in haste,
Leaving…

Leaving often
Often never feeling the full force of departure
Fearful that underneath it I would come undone
I would splinter and break
I would shudder and shake
I would stumble and fall
I would crumble and all
That would remain in my wake
Is smithereens and splintered dreams
And crimson streams
And little things
A collage of brokenness

So I steal myself away
Steel myself – counting down the days