Sinéad Nolan
This is how we’ll do it. We’ll let go of Sunday mornings
with coffee and the newspaper and sunlit
cobwebs out the back. We’ll let the wildness in
and the spiders will get everywhere. The pansies
we planted in pots will go to seed then spring up
in the garden, but we won’t be here to see them.
We’ll leave this place and that will be an end to it.
I’ll stop seeing your song and I’ll long for how you always
took breaks for tea, to let the conversation breathe.
You’ll forget sitting with me on the yellow couch, you’ll forget
every minute of me. I’ll forget the sound of our house:
the creak of the landing and your hand on the rail.
When you next feel afraid, go lie down in your garden
and let the night sky open to catch you.
Or take your shoes and socks off in a cool forest
and feel the mud between your toes.
Don’t think but dance, dance ripples into waves
and watch yourself in the ocean.
Come in to yourself. Feel how your skin holds your body’s waters,
as if you were a reservoir of rain.
Hear your heartbeat, remember you are a vibrant
but brief rhythm and ending.
And when you next fear the ending, imagine the warm blanket of earth
and your return to moss.