Gerrie Fellows

BLANK UNDER CLOUD BARYTES


Into the weather
on cracked basaltic lavas, sheeny between tussocks

under white - grey - blue
high pylons crossing
and the spring birds    only sounds
in the sounds of last night's rain    rills
streaming off the Muirshiel to the rift of the Clyde

The sky we are under    busy with cloud and colour
clumped with light
the wind enters
slams shut its gunmetal stratus    over jolted footsteps
                                                  the ruts of wheels and hooves
until all that is luminous
is a last glowing rail of northern light


Into the leaden,    blank under cloud
that closes over us, walking         the footfall of miners
between iron track and sky          the settling ponds'
                                                 unreflective puddles of smoky rain

                                                 What’s left
fenced with wire
in the deep cut of the mine          barytes' glittering fragments
                                                of cracked pink    a history
                                                of the men who worked it
in the undercut rim of the burn     in the gullies    in the twist
                                                of invisible seams

What's luminous here                is denser than water
deeper than                              shafts sunk into
           flickering snow
                           a white jigsaw on flattened grass
                                               tipped and broken bodies
                                               rock and metal crushed

What shines
is sleet blown in our faces         a pearly luminescence
then nothing but dancing
over bogs

over jewelled green hollows       a cosmetic radiance
                                              in the pattern and patina
                                              of porcelain     of paint and paper
                                              a white pigment
                                              denser than mist


closes law and muir
to fence line    trig point    cairn
to just ourselves    half-seen
in a backing wind
in the cyclone's deep low         the echo
                                             of men, half-heard    underground
                                             of women in the ruined houses
                                             in the crushing mill
in the roar of a waterfall            children, the clatter of ponies

The high aircraft crossing         only sounds,    invisible to us
sunlit    over flat and curving earth

What's luminous here              shines as barytes shines
                                              blank under cloud

Copyright © Gerrie Fellows 2015

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Gerrie Fellows' most recent collection is The Body in Space (Shearsman 2014). Earlier work includes two book-length sequences, Window for a Small Blue Child and The Powerlines. Her poetry can be found at www.gerriefellows.co.uk. She lives and works in Glasgow. Four of her poems appeared in Molly Bloom 6.