Weather Vane

Your love, Lord reaches to heaven your truth to the skies.

Psalmody

I am on the roof this breezy day, In the sixth month of my pregnancy, Picking off the moss and lichen and tossing them

In soft bouquets to the ground.

Above me are the chimneys — Their stacks the colour of sand And round the tops, circles of hearts Opening... to the sky.

I am a billowing blown crow

In my dark work clothes

And this is punishment for vanity. For finding my face in a bucket of blue

Sister brought me up the back stairs. The slates I clean are greens and shell-greys that turn dark ink-blue in rain. Today is a weather-breeder

The nuns say, presaging a storm, So I am here to clean the way And the rain will wash the loosened moss

In green runnels when it comes. I am as high as the monkey puzzle, Its open branches wide smiles

At the level of my eye, arms outstretched —

As if they’d catch me.

Down below is the road I will walk My baby across to give him away He, in a big dicky-up pram, Me, all dressed. Every Monday

The nuns take me to the parlour To write a card telling everyone Who needs to know: that I am well, That the sea is wild, that I am working hard,

That I miss them, when all the while: I’m sitting at an oak table —

The smell of polish heavy in the air, The grandmother clock ticking nearby,

Dry spider plants on the windowsills And a sad-eyed Mary hanging her head In the corner. They take a lot of trouble With the cards. The gardener runs them

Up to Portrush and posts them there So that the stamp’s right, so that the postman

Can tell everyone I’m grand

And it’s not just my parents’ word on it.

I talk to my baby up here.

We’re not supposed to but the wind Takes the words away.

They say Our Lady had no pain

In either the making or getting of God And she was allowed to keep him. I’d have liked mine to have an angel for a father —

He’d have been light on me.

I mind my Granny saying that when the midwife helping Mary Put her hand in to touch

It withered away.

Who’ll help me when the time comes? It’ll be one of them and I think I’d love To have that power to wither their hands.

My hands are cold; the first raindrops splashing

On the slate. The red bricks of the walls burn

In the dying sun’s colour and the birds have gone,

Taking the little offerings of moss and lichen.

They’ll line their nests with them.

Weather Vane is from the collection The Work of a Winter, published by Arlen House