Fireplace

The things I have flung in the fire.

A secret gabbed. A daft lie. An impending mortification. Words put together badly. Words I wish I hadn’t heard. A lost opportunity. An opportunity that came too soon.

Having a poker in your hand lets you jab away at your discontent. And by the time the flames have pulled back and a log starts to crackle, the heat provides an excuse for already burning cheeks.

Staring into the glow, what rankled you starts to blur.

A shard of frustration breaks off. Fierce red fades into orange glow which then gives itself up to grey remains. Losing its bulk to the black, there are spirited attempts to reignite. A spirk, a crackle, a sudden burst of flame. They’re the ‘but…but…but…’ They come to nothing.

Then, with one last poke, the fire settles into acceptance. And as the coals shift, so does your unease.

People with radiators have nowhere to watch their worries burn. Here’s a fireplace for them.

© Shona Main 2012

Shetland black

There can be nothing blacker than a January night in Shetland.

The deeper you go the blacker it gets. The near black of the road ahead. The just-behind black of the hill. The forever black of what’s above.

And if you’re ever truly out of the light, it’s the cold black you breathe that’s the darkest.

© Shona Main 2012

Caught

I became aware of it, coming towards me. We almost touched but I pulled back.

It came again. I felt its chill breath, then the hiss of a fizzing retreat.

It tried another time. I stepped away and it sighed deeply, dragging pebbles into a slow, feigned indifference.

As I walked on I sensed its grey shoulders rise. Then all of a sudden it rushed towards me and I was caught in its cold, mere-momentary delight.

© Shona Main 2011

The end of the line

There was a time when conversations travelled along telephone lines. Each sentence was tightly rolled up for its journey of tens, maybe hundreds, maybe thousands of miles. And when birds sat on the wire, they could feel what we were saying.

These days, our words don’t go down the line, they fill the air. The skies are strewn with layer upon layer of questions, mumbled feelings, softly spoken sentiments, long-winded explanations, clumsy assertions, excuses, lies, confessions.

The birds cannot fly under or over or around the dense pulsation of endless exchanges. They cannot fly away from what we are saying. All around them, everywhere is full of talk.

© Shona Main 2011

Cometh the lichen

One morning I heard the skin behind my ears crackle. I rubbed it and greenish grey flakes came away in my hand. I knew what it was.

I remember seeing these tiny fronds around my grandmother’s temples, smoothed into her monumental hairstyle. She got used to it. We got used to it. In fact, it seemed to give her an authority, an authenticity.

It skips a generation they said so I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. Like my grandmother, I’ll have to learn how to wear it. But at least it’s the grey lichen that’s in our family. I can live with these silver frills. There is a woman in Isbister who has grown the orange crusty lichen. It’s all down her West side and looks like an anger. Sadly it goes so deep she can’t brush it away.

© Shona Main 2011

Dead rabbit

Beautiful in life.

Beautiful in death.

There was just a second – an ugly, reckless second – between both beauties.

 

 

© Shona Main 2011

Moss man

I have this dream

where a moss man

takes me

in his soft,

damp,

green arms.

© Shona Main 2011