From this hill
the coast fades blue to purple.
Nearer, among the shaded greens, blackthorn spikes foam white,
spindrift sheep amble.
The warmth of day has brought another blossoming:
below, the roadway verges bloom
with people round their cars, dinky-toy petals on the grass.
(With countless miles of space, they never stray
an arm's length from the car.
Unless to fetch an ice cream from the van.)
I turn slightly as movement snags my vision.
Along the slope a figure dressed for hiking climbs my way,
walking jacket the colour of the horizon.
(And those dire red socks! "Get green!" I'd said.
"More tasteful, eh?" Amused, he'd laughed at me,
crinkled his eyes at my need for subtlety.)
He climbs easily, smiling, towards the rocks where I sit,
granite ages warm against my back.
I watch unmoving. Lift my arm as he stops,
reaches out his hand to mine.
His face is flushed warm from the walk.
(The last time I kissed that cheek the face was white.
It was cold, immobile. The lips didn't smile.
My face distorted, tight-pinched, compressed
against The screaming rage of loss.)
Our fingers reach, don't quite touch. From this hill
you can see the horizon,
just the colour of a waterproof jacket.
Heather
Uebel
|
|
In
all my dreams
In
all my dreams I walk with you.
By silvered streams in frost, or through
the honey-dappled glint of leaves
in autumn amber. Memory weaves
these tenuous threads of life into
a
stoneblock wall, as if I view
my life as solid construct. Few
would guess from this how my heart grieves
in all my dreams.
For
how long more must I accrue
these tender jagged layers? Into
what hell until my love reprieves
my life without you: 'til soul cleaves
to soul, and I can rest anew
in all my dreams
Heather
Uebel
Top of Page
|
|
The
Piper Davy Spillane
Davy
Spillane,
your haunting, flowing, wondrous airs
singing of mist on the hill,
sun on the loughs, fill
the soul, their beauty smooths all cares:
cools the pain
of feeling my land's lack.
The
piper limns
the green and blue and gold of Eire's cure,
the swooping cliffs and trilling fields,
plover and curlew, dipping, dance a reel
to your swirling lure.
My eye dims
my land, full bright, shines back.
Davy
Spillane
your heartfelt skill,
soul-centred, fills
my heart and soul with joy again.
Heather
Uebel
Top of Page
|
|
To
An Artist
In adolescent yearning,
my attempts to sketch displayed
no talent.
Just a well-meaning delineation of a object's form,
straight edges firm enough, curves unsteady, heavy,
earnest and pedantic.
Landscapes were a nightmare world of bad perspective, ill coloured.
A passionless irrelevance betrayed by clumsy charcoal, worse pastel.
Watch
the artist: intense, arm swooping,
seeing the paper blossom, take on glowing life,
conceived in this symbiosis of passion and nullity
expanding into mind and heart.
I
envy, lustful, this facility to take the world,
put it down on paper
yet not captured: free, vital, bursting off the single plane
into dimensions my soul can only guess at.
My words are a poor imitation
a sad second best.
Yearning,
I write my edges down firm,
hope the curves of my thoughts keep steady.
Heather
Uebel
Top of Page
|
|
Dream
Lover
When I think of you I can never see your face.
When I dream of you the feel of you is
more real
than the shadowy hills and planes
that make up your features.
I think of you more often than you could know
I see you less often than I do
which is why I can never see your face.
Heather
Uebel
Top of Page
|
|
For
The Bereaved
I listened as you
told me all was well,
I heard you say you'd be there,
not to fear.
Your words came from a far place,
lighter than the birdsong through the window,
paler than the sun that dappled the counterpane.
You held my hands:
a touch
softer than the breeze that stirred the roses in the vase
and lifted their perfume through that corner room.
I was with you
there,
but also in a place more real than yours:
a slow step hesitantly started, so hard to take,
drifting in slow motion from pale perfumed rose-petalled sun
to
- when I saw him! -
Vibrant, glowing, rainbow light,
sweetness of perfume heady in its brilliant intensity,
fierce, glorious sound!
And when I saw
him,
much as I loved you both, I had to go.
The last step was easy, after all.
Heather
Uebel
Top of Page
|
|
Leaves
Honey
gold dreams
fill my winter days.
Your image,
hazy with low sun,
soft focus seems
to shimmer: we laze
in autumn amber,
red and gold jewels catch the breeze.
Entwined,
we walk the path
through spangled air
of falling leaves.
One spirals down, drifting,
curled and crisp snags my hair.
Smiling you tell me this means
good fortune.
Sweet
honey dreams
solid as amber.
Golden flickering memories
of you, long gone.
Heather
Uebel
Top of Page
|
|
Grandad
I
visited my grandad.
I
asked him if his hearing aid was working OK.
He shouted "Eh?"
I
said Man.U had beaten Leeds 4 - 3
He muttered "Eeee!"
I
asked should I make a steak and kidney pie:
He said "Aye!"
But
later when I said I had to go
He grumbled "Ohh.…"
I
asked "will you ring me or shall I ring you?"
He snapped "You!"
The
trouble with my grandad is
he's got irritable vowel syndrome.
Heather
Uebel
Top of Page
|
|
The
Shepherd
She'll murder
me when I get home.
She never liked night shifts anyway, me out in the field and
her alone:
I swore I'd be in on time for breakfast, and here it is
dawn already.
What a night.
What really
set it off were those strange blokes singing and chanting.
All wings and robes like clouds; trumpets and blinding lights.
Fair putting
the wind up me and me mates, but we followed them anyway.
And those rich geezers - silks like that you don't see much
round here, and
fancy Persian saddles.
That kid gave
me the shivers at first,
so strange...well it was an ordinary, wrinkled new-born just
like any other, but somehow in its eyes I saw my future change.
And the air was charged, like - you know, just before a storm?
My skin tingled.
And then the
feathered blokes set off again with the choir and the others
knelt
as if he were royalty or something, and we felt...
anyhow - don't laugh - suddenly I'm crying and singing and on
my knees
as me and me mate laughed and hugged for the joy of it all -
and things changed.
The world's
unravelled, and knit itself up again upside down.
And though I feel sad somehow for the me that's gone,
The me that's newborn is dying to tell the wife!
(If I'll get a word in edgeways from the nagging
God alone knows.)
Dawn already.
A real New Dawn...
I don't even know myself what I mean.
I know it's
different.
Heather
Uebel
Top of Page
|