Janet Sutherland

Two Poems

 

Underfoot

all the birds have come to this bancal
on the high path between Sóller and Deia
built stone on stone by Moors a thousand
years ago for olives, oranges and carob

in February they are feeding the fires
and flames catch the leaves and blaze
almost to the arms of the man who
settles the twigs it could be my father

who still makes fire run through things
but here they are re-making the old
cutting and burning the ripe wood
leaving young shoots on gnarled trunks

the voice of the chainsaw echoes in
valleys smoke hangs high and drifts
the terraces are held against the mountain
by the dead and the living their hands

their muscles the salt of their skin
at dusk the mountains shift to grey
layers of rock are smoke and mist
and the sound of the chainsaw stops

just this spade and this pick scraping
making the little difference and underfoot
the cloudy cyclamen and by the side
the dark leaved aromatic myrtle

 


Ash

All that remains is dry
fragmented bone,
the rest is vaporised
and gone. We've held to this
and set our teeth to give you
the first day of autumn.

Pulling grass and groundsel
free, we make the bed.
Is there a good way to do it?
Just face away from the wind.

Grit and substance falls
to earth, a finer grade suspends
in air. This is the place
for calcium phosphates;
Out of a garden you can
grow what you want.

I think of her all the time.
Grey ash settles on the back
of a black frog. In fits and starts
we go on.

 

 

Copyright © 2008, Janet Sutherland.

Janet Sutherland lives in Lewes. Shearsman Books published her first collection Burning the Heartwood in 2006, and will publish her new collection Hangman's Acre towards the end of 2009.