We sweat out our jetlag on the streets around Thanjavar.
Here graceful GrandMothers sit in dusty lanes.
Tiny girls scurry out of school laughing
They are caught in embrace,
Tucked between the legs of parents on scooters and two wheeled away.

The harbour is full of boats I haven’t rocked, and have yet to sink.
I would rather float in a calm sea and let sharp-teethed fish nibble my feet.
Delight in well-fed feral cats with whom I practice Greek.
Ensure the little flightless crow that wanders our porch has a drink.
Hang my loves tee-shirts out to dry and tell him once again, how good he looks in pink.

Kind island

Last night a gale and the shutters were in relentless battle.
Doors rattled
You hit your head on the window frame
All seems rearranged.

Kind island windswept and golden
Clouds lie low in your valleys
Fine white lilies carpet your beaches.
Their smell frenzying the cats, their tails up with delight
Fabled olive trees, the young ancients,
Silver now with new growth.
A single hot flower holds itself open,
The last before Autumn sets the sun.

Grief arrives like a mist across the fields.
Bees brave the morning chill to work the last of the marjoram.
The suprise swallow nest, above the shop door, is empty.
There's a metal taste in my mouth.
It's like the tea I used to get from the Friends stall at my local hospital.
Left.
Over-stewed.
Late Summer throws her gifts at us with outrageous generosity.
Plenty beyond reason
Harvest beyond measure.

I lost heart in family life long ago
It always sets me floundering against a current,
unsure of how to play my part.

I offer an arm to a neighbour
Whose daughter raised your
Straight-backed golden boy.

I listen to her backward-looking stories,
Feel her isolation
Like a forwarning of things to come.

You, my dear, are becoming leaner.
Your footfall on the stairs is quicker.
The bones in your face show the shape of you.
You talk of hunger and hunting.

I want to **** reassurance from you like a syringe.
Singe you name into my skin.
Freeze your love alongside too abundant vegetables.
Put you down, so you are wounded and needy.
Pin you to my heart
Like a brooch found in a park somewhere
Trampled by many feet.
Out on too many rainy nights
To refuse a good rescue when it sees one.

I am wrapped in sameness, love.
You often ask me the names for flowers and trees.
I like to take you arm.
We always welcome the breeze.

When you reach for me,
On a path walking past familiar fields,
Noticing small changes,
Different fences, more land planted,
Or walking to a silent meeting,
where we might chat gently
To others who we are coming to know better,
Our bodies know how they best fit together
So that we can continue to move forward.
Its like a dance we perfect all the time.
I half turn to face you
Your hands on my waist.

Sometimes there's a tweek,
A small change,
An action more fluid,
A feeling of acomplishment,
Like a word used in a different language,
when its learnt,
and ours to speak.

In the corner of the garden, in a tree
A squirrel feasts on cobnuts.
It throws half to the ground to rot.
Selects the best of plenty.

The tree is so big now that its pushing against our stone wall, they say.
Slowly, over time, displacing it.
Exchanging its soft Cotswold boundaries with trunk and bark.

We have fattened ourselves on contentment.
The leaner times come in it seems.
I fear I'll lose you and no matter how much I relentlessly reshape,
I can't be sure or certain.

I dream of plain planks in a nunnery cell.
Rough grey blankets against my skin. Feet on a concrete floor.
I'm turned inwards and outwards
Searching for harsh comfort to replace egyptian cotton sheets.

Heights of delarious brightness are gone.
Where there was flesh theres only bone.
All our cushions turned to stone.