Russell Erwin: And On a Day Soon

And On a Day Soon

There are the shit days, purely that,

(not the catastrophe as when a life’s work’s taken out

—fire to the back door, worse, ashes by morning—

but just the smiling grind of them),

those days of sleet with its knives as you kneel with a ewe,

all the mechanics of birth when grief’s wrapped

in it, elbows caught, a tongue blubbered thick

from a head flopping against the arse of its mother:

the dismemberment, the smell, the anger

that you were too late or the bitch went down

where you couldn’t get her.

So that there’s relief as on a day not far off one hopes

when Spring delivers itself of its scent, that lift of air,

and light is strangely new again; and clean-cut

the hills here are sure drawn, muscled and themselves,

distinct from the sky. And warmth and grass brilliant

and you too are new-filled, you hear bird-song everywhere.

Stand and look and breathe this.

You’ve earned it. Like income it will have to last a year.

Russell Erwin