by Jill Sutton
- Taking Time
Sometimes I just roll on a pretend ball of pastry
and scrape it off the back of my hands and
sometimes I run fingers up and down
between each other like guests at a good
dinner party and sometimes I play this is the
church and here are the people this is the
(something I’ve forgotten) and here is the
steeple and sometimes I slide the soapiness
down around each one of my ten fingers as I
cherish my beloveds one at a time and
sometimes I just make the soap bubbles burst
like a naughty child with a balloon.
Now that it’s fine to take time.
(16th century)
2. My window says
Look, I’ve framed it
Edited it down to this tidy parcel!
Rest with these red clematis leaves
The Buddha from your last house,
And the lattice fence.
I stay deaf to such stillness,
Complaining about a story
With no denouement.
3. Creatureliness
Two ducks,
Living on our pond without owning it,
Glide to the edge
To make space for dogs.
Splashing in,
They’re big, canine and careless.
Out of their depth,
Paddle now fierce,
They hold heads high and proud
To owners’ raucous applause.
When it’s over
Lonely park benches,
Elegant metal curving,
Hold this place as a font,
A quiet earthen bowl
For wetness
As we head for home.
4. Gratitude
Like pegs
Your phone calls
Pin me in the sunshine
Of your presence.
5. Majura poets connecting the dots
Breathless on the and she lay
Knocked back each time
By the poets of Majura.
Their waves,
High pounding thought,
Releasing as the virus
Becomes an Easter tide.
6. Living in place
Struggling to stay still,
And jealous of the European spring,
It comes to me:
Autumn can be a good listener.
7. Sketching
Black on white
Monastic in its shapeliness
Power in the line
Drawing the eye
To the bellybutton
Of reality.
— JILL SUTTON
