The Poetry Society

Scrub explodes in splinters of green;

hillsides trickle dust, a lizard coils

its false tail under a prickly pear.

 

Even rock is aromatic with sun;

oils of lavender and rosemary sublime

into superheated air, arthritic

roots haul us up a gully that sheds sweat

and stones under our feet.

 

These hillsides were terraced for vines

gone wild long since; here is what labour

comes to in the end, its forsaken love,

the scars of some lost wine war

with France.

 

Wild grapes are too sour for pressing;

they've strayed from the knife,

from grafting onto newer stock;

those cellars where cases of wine

and rifles were laid down

fall inwards onto darkness now.

 

The years that propped their vaults

- the constant temperature of air -

saw the sown stones of hope crushed, until

wishes sent after the old language returned,

bringing the Garnacha of speech

to christen its own elusiveness.

 

Air is resinous with scent,

a hawk drifts in your caught breath,

your knees gleaming as I wait for you,

watching the beach's turning

tide of flesh.