In an early draft of this poem, this poem finds its anti-origin in the labour of burial, burial as an anterior quickening of memory’s meaning and miasma, burial as the flourishing and tapering of ghosts. Minocha returns to an earlier poem, embodying the putting-away or recycling of an earlier self.
Born sacred, peace by piece before
November’s war, this yellow thread
formed stardust and scattered ash
bends its head. A call towards the poem
My mother teaches me to recite –
this is the first and only poem
I wander lonely
Sit still daffodil, unborn bulb
Going back, here. Enwombed
in the fall of soil.
I know you already
uncaptured ruin. You waterfall,
refuse gravity. Remain rooted
under Grasmere’s cotton. You remain
weightless:
so every single summer
is a willing defeat to return
to her, and she says
You will live
You will live, again.
Squidditas 