YOU JUST CAME TO ME (poem for #audiomo Day 6)

You just came to me

Pig-sty to cattle track, anemones to fountain-pen,

you sat in yellowed armchair, among psychiatric alumni,

released into a fighting streetscape,

where burnt-out cars took place of bicycles.

Your warrior-self listened to every voice

with the greeting of a saint

who wrote with a sun-lit plume.

Prince of the messengers,

carrier of connections,

pointing companions around wild flowers,

through the thicket of everyday life,

out into a clearing, ever shadowed,

ever dappled,

your painterly hand ever active,

you spoke of trees in a family field,

the feed from bonamhs that licked your fingertips,

the rub of the beast that reminded you of animated conversations,

the rough warm blanket into which you were born.

You walked every inch of the lane that led from farm-house,

past copulating ragwort, to a table strewn with words

drawn together for the sake of safe passage.

In that armchair, you smiled through dark-rimmed spectacles,

turned a tongue around considered thoughts

that vied for voice.

In a flash, you held back

eager sperm-like phrases

in favour of a diamond-eyed glint,

before you spoke the timbre of imagined rest.

I wondered who you were in that evening circle –

just as I wonder now.

You just came to me –

as if I were high in a mountain stream, surrounded by parakeets,

and the echo of flowers talking to the wind –

as if you put a hand in the pocket of your overcoat,

and produced a map for me to read.