The Living by Antony Owen

For Jo Cox

 

I hope your children learn what I was told as a kid by my Mother

that those brightest stars are the ones that will go first

those ones that take our breath away travel further

and then in the darkness they suddenly burst.

 

I hope your widower hears the immigrant birds from your soffits

that he thinks for a moment this bordered earth is all of ours.

I hope through the bird song you hear them as prophets

nnd that breaths in cold air are grey living flowers.

 

I hope you see a kite tail of hatchlings following their Mother

and learn that if the hawk was to snatch her in flight

that you like dying stars can guide them further

even if your eyes have lost in them her light.

 

I remember last year of a fox that petered out in the mist

like an ember spat out from the hearth that hissed

it was December when it sprayed like a cut wrist

in the whale light stars we smiled then kissed.