"Morning View from the Mökki* Outhouse", "Neighbours"...by Gerry Stewart

Morning View from the Mökki* Outhouse

No poetry in the act.

I leave the door cracked wide

to sun-bright grasses.

Birds release a tangle of song

from the orchard,

maybe a tikli or a viherpeippo,

names I pluck

from the Finnish bird poster

pinned to the wall.

The day holds so much

in its too vivid, too early palm –

swimming holes, saunas,

worms for fishing dug

from beneath fresh strawberries.

I want to dip into the shade

of hammock and page,

slow the hours spinning away,

but the kids are restless

in this unfamiliar place

and won’t dive beyond the lake.

Back up the path,

I surprise peacock butterflies,

a trail of breadcrumbs

that swirl off into the trees.

*Finnish summer cottage

Neighbours

Awash in night, blue waves,

submerged stories.

We are never kept fully in the dark,

streetlamps and strips of window

blanch tired faces.

They are muffled footsteps,

caught midst A to B,

or standing behind windows,

exposed, alone,

goldfish shimmers

seen through glass bowls.

They pretend not to notice

my burrowing into their gardens,

snuffling in a wet slather of leaves.

I am the thud of apples,

the quick bruise blooming

beneath the skin

they cover over in the morning

with a distracted hello.

Syyskuu

Finnish for September - autumn moon

I launch seawards, creaking

with a desire to escape.

Beneath St Petersburg’s

golden distractions

I bury the unspoken deeper.

The ingrained response,

my wish for another child weighs insubstantial

against those I already hold.

Random tears

and towering onion domes,

both built on a pooling of blood,

etch clean the day.

An empty still life of macarons

and a silver tea service.

I remain only long enough

to stretch old passions,

reminders of a past life

before packing them away.

Face pressed against

the ship’s windowpane,

the future’s cold reflection at my cheek.

I land back on familiar boggy ground,

tired wings pulled in,

unexpectant eyes closed.

Nothing and everything

holding me back.

The Selkie

I slip from your fireside, untethered.

A wet voice laps the night,

calling me back to my first home.

Too many shores traversed,

wrecks pulled down,

too many storms beating

me down against the sand.

I am stripped raw,

but the cold cannot burrow in

as I take up my long-abandoned pelt.

The undertow tugs at my ankles,

our need visceral, unspoken,

holding me closer than human arms.

Sirens cling to the cliffs,

shrieking demands

from the abandoned nest.

I drift, dropping my head

below the waves

to drown their songs.

Let the salt cleanse my wounds,

stars rinse my eyes,

let the swift current pull me down.

Gerry Stewart is a poet, creative writing tutor and editor based in Finland. Her poetry collection Post-Holiday Blues was published by Flambard Press, UK. Totems is to be published by Hedgehog Poetry Press in 2022. Her writing blog can be found at http://thistlewren.blogspot.fi/ and @grimalkingerry on Twitter.