Poem : Our Secret

Take the third turn over there
by the weeping willow at the barren stream.
Turn sharp now into brightness
or you will miss the crease,
that flaw in time’s weave you must push through
(sometimes my shoulder gets stuck, but I persevere).
Once through, stay low, part and peer through high grasses
watch the herds roll past.
Tusks upraised, immense cinnamon woolly hulks,
regally righteous, grassland behemoths,
lords of the plains
(yes, indeed, the land is flatter here that it was back now).
Be ready for the noise when they cry out,
it reverberates all through your bones
oscillating ears to numbness.
The hulk and bulk of them is prodigious
and worth the squeeze.
Whether it is worth the panic
when you finally realise
the directions home are missing?

Is up to you.

Copyright © 2018 Kim Whysall-Hammond

First published in  Crannóg 49, the Irish print journal, http://www.crannogmagazine.com/