ISABEL CHENOT has loved, memorised, and practised poetry all her remembered life. Some of her poems are collected in The Joseph Tree, available from Wiseblood Books

kneeling in almond blossom

Whatever mystery this is

takes a season

---

sharpened to the bone

and clenched, and under sagging skies

---

from vacant

trees, unravels a white skein.

---

What held the moon

in a twig’s blindness?

---

Now every tissue is a scrim

of light, and every vein

---

glows drizzling generous.

I half-believe, half-unbelieve

---

whatever mystery this is.

It verges on the dull, sunk day

---

unsheathed

relucent, stintless

---

on my knotted brain

choked around why

---

relentless

almost consummated crucifying

---

till I yield my grip on questioning.

Unloom and scatter,

---

hold the moon, unfold.

I yield to this.