NaPoWriMo Day 4: The prompt is to write about an example of an extraordinary feat of nature, from The Strangest Things in The World. I chose to write about the Blue Moonwort flower, which tunnels its way up through inches of ice to reach the sunlight above.

How impossible you are, little snowbell; your

delicate head bulldozing through solid ice. 

Nothing to see here: just your sassy self,

tunnelling up to the light towards your

relentless survival. Beneath the silent ground

a fury of combustion is taking place,

a subterranean tussle for ascendancy.

You blaze in your quest for life,

pushing upwards with dogged certainty

before your final, glorious exit into sunshine.

You are astonishing.

An evolutionary grand-slam.  If you can

do this, then what’s insurmountable?

Let’s sit together for a while.  When I’m with

you everything seems quieter.  We don’t have

to do anything in particular with our time – just

listen to the soft sounds around us.  The

background music of the road, pressed down by

the insistent hush you bring, until it’s no more than

a hum.  Sharp birdsong, called back and forth

between the neighbours’ trees.  The impatient

drone of a bee.

It wasn’t love at first sight between us.  When we

met you were someone else’s – they had changed

you with their own dreams.  It took a while to make

you mine.  I wonder if you prefer the old way,

the neatness of it. Or are you happy with the disorder –

the haphazard tumbling of poppies and dahlias,

sunflowers and daisies.  An osmosis of wild and cultivated.

Eager life falling from every crack, every dark place.

It’s the only way I know how to care for you.

It started with her, with the colour of her hair, I think.

The colour of milk – creamy white, like the top of

the pail.  She wrote with an accent, told her story in

her own words.  Northern.  Bold. Bright as butter.

You’d like it – you’d say the narrative voice was

compelling, or something like that – but you’d mean

that she reminded you a little of yourself.  Of the

fight you’ve had to make your own words heard.

She’s a brave little thing, from what I can

remember.  Not an easy life.  You’ve always liked those

stories.  The ones in which the glass slipper doesn’t fit.

This is an ode to cautious optimism, inspired by the Sylvia Plath quote: ‘In March, I’ll be rested, caught up and human.’

In March

The sun will awaken.  The ground

will dry out, just a little.

Bees will return, a few butterflies

too, pale wings reflecting

delicate spring light.

In March

I’ll notice.  I’ll take a moment

to look at apple blossom, at the

detail contained in each pink

flower.  I’ll keep minutes in each day

for wonder, at all of it.

In March

I’ll take my time.  Sunday mornings

will roll out lazily with tea and

and easy joy, our dog stretched long

on the unmade bed.  We’ll let her

sleep, her back rising in gentle waves.

In March

I’ll rest.  My body will gradually uncurl

and I’ll stretch towards the sun. 

There’ll be pain, but not much.

I’ll remember who I am. Words will

fall easily into place on the page.

In March

The sun will peek, then blink

behind clouds. Petals will

appear then fall. There will be

joy and there will be ease.  The world

will continue its slow pirouette.

Colour hasn’t yet fully returned. The sky is

still painted in grey and white and the flowers

are pale green, or in the bud – waiting furled, the

tiny hopeful speck of a thought.  Spring is here

in potentia, a gift wrapped in winter paper,

marked do not open until. 

I’ve noticed birdsong the last couple of mornings –

a handful of sharp notes pecked through the big quiet.

It’s almost time, they are saying.  Keep going.

Meanwhile they’ll continue searching for real estate

in hedges and garden boxes and chimneys.

A place to enact their own February love story.

My body hasn’t yet shaken off the

winter, but soon, I hope.  Soon we’ll dust

off the last of the frost and stretch cold-brittle

arms towards the light – the point of a sundial marking

our progress through the dark part of the year.

Above all, it feels like a beginning – the letting out

of breath with a single whispered word: new.

Note: This year I am planning to write a poem for each month of the year.

You arrive, keys in hand,

sharp suited and lemon scented.

January.  Clean living,

scrubbed-up January,

with your dazzling smile and

promise of better: better me,

better life, better world.

You unlock the door and in we go;

new light floods over old,

edges are sharp to the touch.

December’s been left at home

with the curtains drawn and

lights switched off, banished

to nurse one final hangover

while you and I stride

confidently into the new year.

But here’s the thing, January.

I can smell the magnolia

emulsion. I can see the wine stain

peeping out from beneath the

cabinet.  I know what I’ll find

if I pull back the rug.  You and I

both know you’re a lie, January.

You come here every year with

your healthy meal plans and

your gym membership and

you seduce us anew with

promises you just don’t keep.

Now I come to think of it,

that smile looks a little forced.

Stand here, January, while we

make some adjustments.  Pull

that end of the wallpaper and

I’ll take this side.  It’s not stuck

down yet; it’ll come off in one

wet movement.  That’s better.

Now push that table

over and spill some coffee.

Tip over the neatly stacked

books and while you’re at it,

take off that tie.  Let’s make mess.    

Let’s upend those

expectations and stamp on

those resolutions. 

This year

January, we’re going to be

untidy and unfit; we’re going

to eat the damn cake.

We’re going laugh and

play games and break the rules. 

Come on January; it’s time.

Let’s have some fun. 

Note: I don’t write a lot of rhyming poetry – not because I think there’s anything wrong with using rhyme – it just tends to get in the way of my word choices. But writing this one was a lot of fun.

Weaste Lane, Salford Five

Economically deprived;

Teenage sex, drugs and knives,

What a time to be alive.

Five hundred kids, Salford’s poor

Walking through the double doors,

Here to receive our education

And disprove the general expectation.

If we learned a bit of maths and tech

Some cooking skills and some Macbeth

And we didn’t die or end in prison

the school had succeeded in its mission.

We couldn’t really ask for more

We couldn’t really ask for Moore –

We weren’t exposed to a lot of poetry.

It just wasn’t seen as a priority.

What could we do with something esoteric?

We were given subjects with practical merit.

It was discreetly slipped off, filed away

For other kids on a different day.

We were shown just one, I think – 

Water, water was everywhere.  We did not drink.

Somehow, somehow, I became a writer

Discovered how to knit together

words and thoughts, dark and light;

I realised I loved to write.

It took a little while till I

could comfortably self apply

the label poet, but here I am;

Sharing my latest epigram.

So each time I begin to lack

For confidence, I just think back

I remember where I am from

And exactly how far I’ve come.

I remind myself that I have earned this,

even if I never learned this.

Ethel Carney wrote many of her poems while working at the St Lawrence Mill in Blackburn.  She is a rare example of a successful working class female writer from the early twentieth century and she represents everybody who has ever tried to live a creative life while working long and difficult hours. This poem is a tribute to her poem ‘Household Gods’ in which she considers the things we cherish in our homes.

The picture you paint of your gods is at once sweet

and frightening – the warmth of the hearth, firelight

against black stone.  Spaces which have held friends

now call to you with memories. Things which ought to be

lifeless are not.  They call out in your voice.

You are careful to warn that I will not see them

if I stop by your small house.  That’s fine – they are

yours and I would not try to take them. You tell me

I may have my own shrine, in my own small house.

But things have changed now. You’d be surprised by

our world.  Things are differently full.  Information

follows us around.  We no longer find the time to listen

to the cheerfully whistling kettle – today’s gods

have other qualities.  We carry our phones like icons

– reach for their reassuring weight in our pockets

– notice their absence like an empty chair.  A strange god,

this one – needing no prayers or devotion – just our

constant attention, like a bored child tugging on a sleeve. 

Look at me.  Look at me. You’d be bemused.  You’d

wonder why we give our time to something

that doesn’t love us back.  Why we ignore one another

at bus stops, avoid eye contact in the street.

A glass with a small fracture.

The water leaks so slowly you

barely notice until

it’s half empty.  But it’s the

only one you have, so you

continue.  Every day it is

refilled, every day a little

less, and it continues to

leak.  Nobody can understand

why you’re always thirsty.  You

can’t explain why this water

is suddenly so precious to you.

There’s so much of it that

it rains from the sky, but

you can’t catch it. While

others are putting up

umbrellas you’re trying

to fill your broken glass.