The Tuesday Poem: November Day, For Joan MacKernan

Of being still as a still pond

and being inside the pond.

Lying down with water in prayer.

Then, there’s the habit of rhythm

body seconds, 0.9 of a second

pumping the prayer

and there’s a bowing down inside the body

of prayer, being inside the life

is prayer.

Being there.

1.40pm

Birds lift from the wet earth

unfurl into cloud, soar across the sky

and I wonder if I wait here will wind lift me,

carry me as light above the land?

2.

5.15pm

Evening light creeps in.

Shadows spread across the paving.

A wren pulls cotton

from a rag hanging by the studio door.

And that long shadow is not my son

but a tree’s arm spreading,

slipping into his body with a familiar sway.

For a second, I see him out there

against the weathered timber.

11.30pm

Diary Entry: To my mother.

Winter. Water stills.

Everything falls inward.

The well is full of stars

and the night sky

is a constellation of swallows.

Jo Slade is a painter and poet living in Limerick.