TO WAKE, TO FLOWfor my wifeFor me that was a surge, an ebbing, but did youfeel waking in the deep-flow of your lifea ripple fluttering from us, newas melting snowflake, sure as a surgeon's knife?From our closed arc, a breaking through.And when you swelled and 'Look' you said, I pressed with slowblind fingers finding out the curling lines:'He's there perhaps. His head!' And noand yes! a heartbeat, tenuous, leaf-fine.Together we would feel him grow.You wore him proudly then, and I would take your arm,afraid of angles' threats, afraid for two.'He jumped,' you'd say, and 'Oh the warmshape of him here.' In bed at night you knewhis curve and mine, Mandala's form.And then a spiral from that point, a widening arcto walls white-hard, a cavern hung with steel;blurred nurse-shapes move, the Uquid darkbehind your eyes bursts through my grasp. I feelthe circle rive. Then wait, apart.Mirrored within the ripples of your eyes, he'll turn—look now!—your own gaze on you, or he'll speakmy voice to make this circle runaround our lives more surely. Ours to waketo flow to this, our growing son.B. A. BREEN30 WESTERLY, No. 1, MARCH, 1968
Judy ForsythA CHICKEN FROM THE FARMWhen Lola's domsetic servant Mina left forher annual fortnight's holiday she promisedoutof the goodness of her heart, to bring backa chicken from the farm. On her return shebrought the chicken, and her little son Alpheus,and not to be outdone, out of the goodness ofher heart, Lola accepted both. The boy was thetenderer offering, a plump three-year-old witha charming smile and eyes that cushioned trustin brown velvet. He was forever disappearing,like a cockroach into beading, around a cornerof one of the outbuildings when Lola went outinto the yard. His mother had obviously threatenedhim with some rural ogre's anger, to bedispensed by her own obedient palm, to keephis place there. Lola was a kindly woman andshe assured Mina that the child was welcometo play in the house with her own children,who were willing enough for an occasionalgame with the little piccanin but, unable tospeak his language and being rather older, theyhad their own interests; or else, Lola said, hecould remain in the kitchen with his mother.But Mina didn't want him in there, gettingunder her skirts, and she treated her mistress'schildren's toys, and indeed all her employer'sbelongings, with an astute reverence that forbadeher own child to touch them.So the little boy kept to the yard during theday time and at night he and Mina slept togetherin peace on her narrow bed, andsqueezed up tight under her breast- his kneesindenting her big belly, she comforted him forthat day's separation and strengthened him forthe next.In fact, in the daytime he was not quitealone, for had he not the other temporarylodger of the yard, the fowl, to play with? Attimes he could be heard chuckUng as he chasedit around and around, he himself an ogre nowafter the errant bird, until it protested andscreeched, annoying the neighbours and delightingthe servants. Mina, laughing, would atlast yell out, "Hey, shut up there, you two,"and they would both disappear in an instant.Then a subdued "pock, pock" would tell wherethe boy and his accomplice were hidden, theone trembling, bright-eyed, and the otherbeady-eyed and ruffled, both alert, waiting tobe discovered, though in fact no one wouldever bother and, at last, the fowl would strutout from under the child's constraining elbowand go pecking and picking away amongst thegranadilla vines.Lola secretly hoped that it would be bittenthere by one of those snakes which weavethemselves unnoticed, like tendrils, through thesupporting wire netting, waiting for an innocentEve's-hand to come and pluck one of thehard oval fruits, with their tough, thin skinfaintly purple and mottled, erect as a nipple.How apt, she thought, that in some countriesthey are called passion fruits, and how thecontents of the taut skins are indeed succulentand delicious when the fruit is ripest. Thosewho are ignorant frequently leave the granadillauntil it is too late, until the skin becomesdark and wizened like an old African's faceand the pips turn into little black grits coveredwith tart blebs of orange skin, and, like passionunspent, go sour within the flesh.As the fowl scratched querulously amongstthe leaves Lola watched it and thought that itslegs and feet were the ugliest part of its body.She looked at the toes splayed out, horny andgrasping, trampling and tearing at the leavesand grass. Their white skin was coarse andcracked, and further up, the legs darkened incolour and resembled the decaying granadillas.The fowl moved with its spindly- black-cladprops wide apart- bony and sexless like the oldbird it was. Its body was scrawny and it seemedthat those glands responsible for the sheen of abird's feathers had long since ceased to function,leaving them lustreless and flaccid as anold black umbrella.WESTERLY, No. 1, MARCH, 1968 31
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