MAUREEN WELDON
He Tells Her
She lives her life
in boxes,
or signed
on the bottom line.
The in-laws,
the rotten husband,
and jam making.
And the child –
that joy – the child.
Then grandmother,
rather wild, chilled out,
good at making pastry.
And friends, they are the ones,
do not forget;
they will remind you of
what you have forgotten.
So, maybe tomorrow
is the day to stand
by the edge of the water
as the tide turns;
where the past sucks secrets
through a shell.
If Cares Were Stones
I would drop them under a waterfall
to pound and twist.
Ride a horse to the peak of a hill –
until black clouds burst ferocious rain,
stones rolling, down, down, down.
I would drag them across a seaweed beach
pods popping between my toes –
tip them into the sea.
Yet I would keep just one:
the moonstone on a silver chain;
your name, on my tongue.
Memory
How rich it is,
this ocean,
this sort of ground-down dust
like lapis lazuli
in bright sunlight.
One does not
have to change its dress,
it is always here, growing daily;
every book, newspaper,
symphony, flower,
while sense and sensibility
sing a lullaby – soothingly
or spring to life
in a twisted dream.
It tells tales
when sipping wine;
the clinking of glasses
the laugh, the tear.
It is every year
like the long road,
or the moon
caught in the shadows
of a banyan tree.
Maureen Weldon is Irish and lives in North Wales. She is a former professional ballet dancer. Her poems have been published in both print and online magazines and journals including Poetry Scotland, Crannog, Drey, Poetry Cornwall, Fire, Purple Patch, Poetry Monthly, Reflections, On-Line, Ink Sweat and Tears and Snakeskin. In 2011 twenty-five of her poems were published byThe Sons of Camus International Journal, winning her an award. She has published five chapbooks, and enjoys giving readings – especially with live music.
