Liz Lefroy is a poet. She writes about family, faith and loss. She writes to celebrate the sheer joy of words. Her first collection of poems is called Pretending the Weather and the two poems that follow are from that collection.
Map
I your mother have a new map for the world. See how
wild it is! The plains I wandered nomad creak now under
the bear’s paw suffocate my journeying with thick stems
behind which lurk pounce and barbed fright. There are
edges now juts and rims overhangs precipices which
persuade your young skin the soft skin of your brow
knees hands to the small rocks the tiny stones which
imagine themselves embedded fastened into you. In the
distance the crag-peaks heave themselves up until there is
no horizon but the diminishing blue and the menace of
enfolding. And there are the hordes the multitudes which
swarm heedless of the loveliness the locus of you that is
all everything abundant everything.
To buy a copy of Pretending the Weather, please contact Liz by email: liz.lefroy@btinternet.com
Pretending the Weather
On the second mild day in March,
We get out our cobwebbed chairs,
Discuss gas and charcoal.
It’s good for the garden,
We say, when the cold returns,
And resume the wearing of vests.
We spend the first warm day in May
Bedding in tender plants
And drink tea in a patch of sun.
At night, fearful of late frost,
We tuck up the flowers
In yards of white fleece.
In August we talk of heat,
Of how even France can be like this,
Of getting further south,
At the beach, the children insist on burial,
Play out their skinny toughness
In castles, shells and grainy hair.
Our harvest is green and small:
Tomatoes, beans, bitter grapes.
We pickle the little sun into jars.
When the winter has settled us,
We breathe in vinegar and cardamom,
And consider the value of rain.
Liz Lefroy’s second collection of poems, The Gathering, is due to be published in May. The poems have been set to music and will be premiered at the St Chad’s Music Festival, Shrewsbury on 5th May 2012.
