On the Patch Where the Strawberries Grew

On the Patch Where the Strawberries Grew

At the edge of my world I’ll take a drink

At each end of my year, another

This night beneath our northern stars

I’m sent out alone, yet she’s with me

Where two breaths swirl in sanguine air

She’d have a small glass just for the luck

With one eye glinting, one wistful

Blaming the drink, one whiskey

Three sheets to the wind, she’d say of herself

Until angels took her arm, took her home

What use is the fiddle that’s left in its box?

What good’s a bottle, its neck choked with cork?

Now pull them both out

And watch your world dance

What use is a face full of sorrow?

I stood on the patch where the strawberries grew

Footprints in the snow led me back

We’d a canny old time in the Melbourne that night

With Isa there too, so the fourth sheet unfurled

Memories turning grey, then old, as I do

Celestial laughter rings from her realm

Beyond where Black Cats yowl

Seeing her eyes in the waning moon

I pull the cork on the strike of the bells

And step through the door when they’re still

Image:

My own photograph of the Angel of the North near Gateshead in England.