Poems
BENDING STARLIGHT
If it is true that starlight bends around dark matter,
around what once was there and is forever gone,
then I must say that science proves the loss of you.
Light bends away and round you
in that great emptiness
through which the particles of time and space
entangled
turn precisely when the others turn.
Is this the only way to know that you are there?
I stop and turn not knowing why
or walk an unplanned path
or stumble on a secret conversation
and in those moments when the road not taken
stretches impossibly behind me,
I wonder if you too have turned and we are still entangled,
twisting and turning in perfect parallel,
and you are out there somewhere bending starlight.
by Trish Gauntlett
TWO
I am cheaply bought with this uncommon currency,
the language of the heart.
And you lay down two words, dear one,
to purchase my surrender.
I sleep, eat, breathe them, as if they are all I need,
as if they are the Holy Grail, the secret room within the sphinx,
as if they are all temples and all gods.
Two words, by chance, from you to me.
What was the cost to you?
A breath, a heartbeat passing in a moment, unconsidered, gone?
Or like the widow’s mite, tiny and worthless in itself,
made priceless by the risk of giving all and gaining nothing,
did those words contain your hopes and dreams?
Were they the highest price that you could pay
for cloth of such uncertain measure?
by Trish Gauntlett
SURFACES
You draw my portrait,
eyes darting like a wading bird
into the liquid space between us,
hands flashing at the easel,
head cocked in quick, dispassionate appraisal.
Fixed in your close, unwavering scrutiny,
I am still. Pared down.
Examining myself as nothing more than planes and angles,
lines and shadows, void beneath.
Still. I am still.
What passion can I force into my flat, dark eyes
to trouble your detachment?
What ripple on my quiet surface
to tip your charcoal out of balance,
make you draw against your will,
surprise you with a small, anarchic flourish,
so you will see beyond quiescent black and white?
by Trish Gauntlett
In 2018 & 2020 NASA offered the opportunity to send our names to Mars on board the InSight and Perseverance Landers. More than 2 million people responded.
MARS
I sent my name to Mars
etched by electrons on a microchip
fixed on a robotic ship.
When I was young in London leaning from the attic window in the row house
with bluebells on the bomb shelter
watching the rag and bone man work the street with horse and cart
leaning out as far as safe to see the towers in Battersea power up
and lift their coal smoke in the air,
high into the London air,
my only thought of Mars was when there was a glint of stars through London smog,
stars, stars, stars like storybooks.
There was no thought of planets.
When I was young in Africa dreaming on the clear night sky
before sputnik, before Apollo,
before one small step, one giant leap,
before we said the word space as often as we say the word earth,
when I was young my only thought of Mars was Gustav Holst.
Red, cautionary music, menacing, percussive, advancing, the Bringer of War.
When I was young I did not dream that on this day I would be saying that I sent my name to Mars.
I did not dream of robots, microchips, electrons.
My dreams were earthbound;
wolves beneath my bed,
willows in water,
violets in springtime,
sixpence in sweet shops,
new shoes, perhaps this year, new shoes.
And all this time my name was growing, changing, shifting, reaching outward, upward
reaching for the wider world, the sky, the stars,
aiming for the day when it would slip the bonds and ride a silver ship through time and space
to land, red, cold and small under two moons
millions and millions of miles from where my name was written first and spoken first
when I was new and young
a child of Strawberry Fields,
a child of England,
a child of Earth.
by Trish Gauntlett
EMPTY SPACE
Why should we save this Earth when Saturn's sky rains diamonds?
Jupiter's aurora shifts in purple, yellow, turquoise, brighter, older than our Northern Lights.
Titan's tides hide secret oceans, trapped beneath red ice.
On Mars, Olympus Mons, watchtower of alien gods, is higher than two Everests.
Why should we save this Earth when out there,
out there is the stuff of dreams, the building blocks of life?
Except, except
we cannot breathe in space
and this is no small thing when diamonds fall
and symphonies of rainbows fill the sky.
We cannot cry or shout or whisper.
We cannot not sing.
There are no trees in space.
No Sitka spruce measuring its branches one by one against the open sky.
No shore pine sending all its life and purpose to the top.
No sun-bright, evergreen arbutus, with its fractal green and orange bark.
No sacred cedar, shaping house and history, clan and culture.
No oxygen.
Trees hold the power of life and death for us and we for them, in equal measure.
Now is the time to throw ourselves against the ancient justice of the woods
and promise transformation, restoration, conservation.
Trees do not take sides.
They do not choose redemption.
They simply live or die, often by our hand.
Why should we save them? Why protect this Earth?
On Saturn, Jupiter, Titan, Mars, all planets and all moons, not one tree grows.
Although we do not ask for grace from trees,
they give it.
And we can breathe.
We can cry and shout and whisper.
We can sing.
ROMAN WALL
Morning tumbles from the watchtower,
falling across rippled mounds where Roman soldiers curl
asleep in Britain's warm brown earth.
Sun topples shade,
ordering silence
and the ruined walls comply,
keeping their military secrets still.
Stones crack and crumble into dust.
The old mosaic fields stretch open into light.
Life stirs
small, green and sweet.
Sharp, shining blades in occupation of the hills.
High up and far away an eagle looking down
sees only dust and ruined citadels
but out of sight below
insurgent raven beaks disarm soft mounds of earth
and claw back sustenance from ancient bones.
by Trish Gauntlett
OF A CERTAIN AGE
Laid back, out walking in the wind and rain
with hair all wild and make-up gone,
don’t care who sees me, who sees me this way.
He turns and something in the angle of his cheek reminds my heart of you.
What if he had been you?
Look at me, lines uncovered, too much grey
exposed.
Why didn’t I, why don’t I every morning
dress as if we might meet accidentally somewhere?
On the seawall, by the bridge, in the mall.
Why don’t I pour the perfume on
and cover lines and grey with surface colour,
wear my six-inch heels and clean sophisticated suits
and look more polished, more together,
younger than I ever was when we were lovers?
Then if the tilted cheek is yours as it has never been since that last day,
I will be glorious,
repaired, recovered, reinvented
and you will never see the woman wild and old
who does not earn a second glance.
by Trish Gauntlett
EAGLE
Turning around a corner on the forest trail,
we startled an eagle into flight.
Up he went flickering black and white behind the trees
like an old film.
The path will trip you
if you raise your eyes.
It will trip you
if you look away.
Exposed roots.
Sharp rocks.
The choice?
To plod with eyes downcast,
safe against a fall,
or risk a look up to the sky to see an eagle fly.
by Trish Gauntlett
TWO HORSEMEN
At dusk the sun has laid its yoke across the neck of evening, a crosspiece joining it to night,
driving it away from day, drowning it in the sea.
Darkness inevitable now. Nothing in this world can hold it back.
Disconnected by the cold, a small leaf falls and waits curled up on frosted earth.
Life coursing through its veins diminishes with each frozen moment, browning, breaking, blowing away to dust.
Winter inevitable now. Nothing in this world can hold it back.
In cities, caves, and countries where the dream of peace is crushed beneath the bombs and boot heels, power smashes freedom with a clenched fist, chaining, caging, crushing.
Downfall inevitable now. Nothing in this world can hold it back.
Conquest rides a white horse.
Out of the ordinary everyday, writers, construction workers, mothers, dreamers, doctors, cooks, and carpenters take to the streets, protest, fight back, forming a carapace for hope.
Spring inevitable now. Nothing in this world can hold it back.
Resistance rides a silver horse.
by Trish Gauntlett
If it is true that starlight bends around dark matter,
around what once was there and is forever gone,
then I must say that science proves the loss of you.
Light bends away and round you
in that great emptiness
through which the particles of time and space
entangled
turn precisely when the others turn.
Is this the only way to know that you are there?
I stop and turn not knowing why
or walk an unplanned path
or stumble on a secret conversation
and in those moments when the road not taken
stretches impossibly behind me,
I wonder if you too have turned and we are still entangled,
twisting and turning in perfect parallel,
and you are out there somewhere bending starlight.
by Trish Gauntlett
TWO
I am cheaply bought with this uncommon currency,
the language of the heart.
And you lay down two words, dear one,
to purchase my surrender.
I sleep, eat, breathe them, as if they are all I need,
as if they are the Holy Grail, the secret room within the sphinx,
as if they are all temples and all gods.
Two words, by chance, from you to me.
What was the cost to you?
A breath, a heartbeat passing in a moment, unconsidered, gone?
Or like the widow’s mite, tiny and worthless in itself,
made priceless by the risk of giving all and gaining nothing,
did those words contain your hopes and dreams?
Were they the highest price that you could pay
for cloth of such uncertain measure?
by Trish Gauntlett
SURFACES
You draw my portrait,
eyes darting like a wading bird
into the liquid space between us,
hands flashing at the easel,
head cocked in quick, dispassionate appraisal.
Fixed in your close, unwavering scrutiny,
I am still. Pared down.
Examining myself as nothing more than planes and angles,
lines and shadows, void beneath.
Still. I am still.
What passion can I force into my flat, dark eyes
to trouble your detachment?
What ripple on my quiet surface
to tip your charcoal out of balance,
make you draw against your will,
surprise you with a small, anarchic flourish,
so you will see beyond quiescent black and white?
by Trish Gauntlett
In 2018 & 2020 NASA offered the opportunity to send our names to Mars on board the InSight and Perseverance Landers. More than 2 million people responded.
MARS
I sent my name to Mars
etched by electrons on a microchip
fixed on a robotic ship.
When I was young in London leaning from the attic window in the row house
with bluebells on the bomb shelter
watching the rag and bone man work the street with horse and cart
leaning out as far as safe to see the towers in Battersea power up
and lift their coal smoke in the air,
high into the London air,
my only thought of Mars was when there was a glint of stars through London smog,
stars, stars, stars like storybooks.
There was no thought of planets.
When I was young in Africa dreaming on the clear night sky
before sputnik, before Apollo,
before one small step, one giant leap,
before we said the word space as often as we say the word earth,
when I was young my only thought of Mars was Gustav Holst.
Red, cautionary music, menacing, percussive, advancing, the Bringer of War.
When I was young I did not dream that on this day I would be saying that I sent my name to Mars.
I did not dream of robots, microchips, electrons.
My dreams were earthbound;
wolves beneath my bed,
willows in water,
violets in springtime,
sixpence in sweet shops,
new shoes, perhaps this year, new shoes.
And all this time my name was growing, changing, shifting, reaching outward, upward
reaching for the wider world, the sky, the stars,
aiming for the day when it would slip the bonds and ride a silver ship through time and space
to land, red, cold and small under two moons
millions and millions of miles from where my name was written first and spoken first
when I was new and young
a child of Strawberry Fields,
a child of England,
a child of Earth.
by Trish Gauntlett
EMPTY SPACE
Why should we save this Earth when Saturn's sky rains diamonds?
Jupiter's aurora shifts in purple, yellow, turquoise, brighter, older than our Northern Lights.
Titan's tides hide secret oceans, trapped beneath red ice.
On Mars, Olympus Mons, watchtower of alien gods, is higher than two Everests.
Why should we save this Earth when out there,
out there is the stuff of dreams, the building blocks of life?
Except, except
we cannot breathe in space
and this is no small thing when diamonds fall
and symphonies of rainbows fill the sky.
We cannot cry or shout or whisper.
We cannot not sing.
There are no trees in space.
No Sitka spruce measuring its branches one by one against the open sky.
No shore pine sending all its life and purpose to the top.
No sun-bright, evergreen arbutus, with its fractal green and orange bark.
No sacred cedar, shaping house and history, clan and culture.
No oxygen.
Trees hold the power of life and death for us and we for them, in equal measure.
Now is the time to throw ourselves against the ancient justice of the woods
and promise transformation, restoration, conservation.
Trees do not take sides.
They do not choose redemption.
They simply live or die, often by our hand.
Why should we save them? Why protect this Earth?
On Saturn, Jupiter, Titan, Mars, all planets and all moons, not one tree grows.
Although we do not ask for grace from trees,
they give it.
And we can breathe.
We can cry and shout and whisper.
We can sing.
ROMAN WALL
Morning tumbles from the watchtower,
falling across rippled mounds where Roman soldiers curl
asleep in Britain's warm brown earth.
Sun topples shade,
ordering silence
and the ruined walls comply,
keeping their military secrets still.
Stones crack and crumble into dust.
The old mosaic fields stretch open into light.
Life stirs
small, green and sweet.
Sharp, shining blades in occupation of the hills.
High up and far away an eagle looking down
sees only dust and ruined citadels
but out of sight below
insurgent raven beaks disarm soft mounds of earth
and claw back sustenance from ancient bones.
by Trish Gauntlett
OF A CERTAIN AGE
Laid back, out walking in the wind and rain
with hair all wild and make-up gone,
don’t care who sees me, who sees me this way.
He turns and something in the angle of his cheek reminds my heart of you.
What if he had been you?
Look at me, lines uncovered, too much grey
exposed.
Why didn’t I, why don’t I every morning
dress as if we might meet accidentally somewhere?
On the seawall, by the bridge, in the mall.
Why don’t I pour the perfume on
and cover lines and grey with surface colour,
wear my six-inch heels and clean sophisticated suits
and look more polished, more together,
younger than I ever was when we were lovers?
Then if the tilted cheek is yours as it has never been since that last day,
I will be glorious,
repaired, recovered, reinvented
and you will never see the woman wild and old
who does not earn a second glance.
by Trish Gauntlett
EAGLE
Turning around a corner on the forest trail,
we startled an eagle into flight.
Up he went flickering black and white behind the trees
like an old film.
The path will trip you
if you raise your eyes.
It will trip you
if you look away.
Exposed roots.
Sharp rocks.
The choice?
To plod with eyes downcast,
safe against a fall,
or risk a look up to the sky to see an eagle fly.
by Trish Gauntlett
TWO HORSEMEN
At dusk the sun has laid its yoke across the neck of evening, a crosspiece joining it to night,
driving it away from day, drowning it in the sea.
Darkness inevitable now. Nothing in this world can hold it back.
Disconnected by the cold, a small leaf falls and waits curled up on frosted earth.
Life coursing through its veins diminishes with each frozen moment, browning, breaking, blowing away to dust.
Winter inevitable now. Nothing in this world can hold it back.
In cities, caves, and countries where the dream of peace is crushed beneath the bombs and boot heels, power smashes freedom with a clenched fist, chaining, caging, crushing.
Downfall inevitable now. Nothing in this world can hold it back.
Conquest rides a white horse.
Out of the ordinary everyday, writers, construction workers, mothers, dreamers, doctors, cooks, and carpenters take to the streets, protest, fight back, forming a carapace for hope.
Spring inevitable now. Nothing in this world can hold it back.
Resistance rides a silver horse.
by Trish Gauntlett
