Posted on by Isabel Chenot

kneeling in almond blossom

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.

Posted on by Isabel Chenot

Spectred land and dawn, the coast, mid-September

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

spectred land

A single star – a pentacle
cut from the moon’s frill, or some future dawn –
flew near our car. The sky was simple
on one drowsing hill. Beyond,

grazed mountains – ghosts of mastodon.

dawn, the coast, mid-September

Far out, the seabirds

in the silver braids

wink like white ash. The ocean swerves

dawn-slung and early.

How slight, their mirrored legs – and how kaleidoscoped,

reflected curves of wading curlews,

closer, over tide-roped

shore. Each wave re-centers and re-blurs dilating curlews.

The middle distance spins and shimmers like a dime.

A seagull skims the fallow instant before shock:

the crack in time, when a wave crams its hollow

on a rock.

And closer by, prone shadows etch down-sill

of casements flushed with sand. Touch the bright rush –

reality. The night still drags its fingernails

along the rim. We are its tapering hand.

We and the brightness brush.