Time away

20.5.96

Time was I held you in my arms
soothing

Drove away the hooded crow that perched
at the end of your tiny bed
crowing

Silenced the rampant cock that strutted
along the lane on your way to school
darting his beak across your skin
pecking

Swung you out and high and wide
your hands in mine your head thrown back
a Magic Roundabout all our own
as the earth dipped in and the sky fell out
spinning

Tickled your knees and ears with grass
summer-seeded along the lane
where you lay asleep in the afternoon
near the shadowed spider spinnings
that glistened all night in jewelled dew
teasing

-

Lying in sheets all tumbled round
I fret and fumble murmuring low
shaking sounds to a deafened door
standing between my life and death
staring in from the window behind my bed
teasing

Swinging all the world away
the hands and hearts and the heads thrown back
giggling into a roundabout laughter
as death dips in and life dips out
spinning

Silences call from the ramparts now
to winding gears as the years run out
and death's mouth kisses at my skin
pecking

Driving in the hooded crow to perch
at the end of the tumbled bed
crowing

Time now to hold me in your arms

soothing time away

copyright 1996 Charlotte Peters Rock

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