Strange Loss

I cut you from my branches

With the sharpest knife

I hacked you from my hiding place

In the tree above the summer house

And threw you to the ground

Though you were still unripe

 

In truth I did want you

And with such tender care

I nurtured your roots

And your shoots growing fair

With water from the holy well

Carried in my hair

 

In truth I did want you

I hungered for you, needed you

So I planted you

And seeded you

Beside the summer house

And in my hiding place you grew

 

Then in the Autumn we picked berries

In an offhanded way

Wandering the lanes

With nothing to say

I picked fruit at your feet

That I hoped I could keep

And eat in the Spring

 

In memory of this

half-ripe

half-dreamed

half-realised thing

 

But in the cold heart of Winter

I realised my folly

Confronted by Death

I visited the Fool

And the wisdom he offered

was “Stick to the rules…

That fruit is not yours

That you hide in your glen

So lose it you must

To begin life again”

 

So I climbed to my place

In the tree above the summer house

And I found where you grew

Around the very heart of me

 

Then I visited the kitchen

Of the husband and wife

And I cut you from my branches

With the sharpest knife

Mallika McCarthy, January 2006    

 

(one from the archives… MMc April 2014) 🙂

photo by M.McCarthy 2011 – Autumn at Oughtmama  – The Burren, Co Clare, Ireland ❤