jean talbot

Stepping Stones
(for James)

You are buried deep
in our loam.

The children take
fairy-steps or giant steps
along the path you made.
Don't fall through the spaces!

Never just right for an adult stride,
people choose warily
between long steps and short,
mix them into double dactyls,
or walk straight across the grass
to reach the verandah.

The heart skips a beat,
many, counting the years
since you planted
that graceful curve of bricks
to the front steps,

more since you first came
to collect our daughter.

Young palm trees by the house
count the years in rings,
polished, in the rain,
jade and amber
between the leaf-scars.

The rings we wear
are not so organic:
sometimes trap the flesh
and need to be cut off.

Some bricks are cracked;
Mole-crickets tunnel under;
The grass always encroaches,
but we can't help taking that path,
uncomfortable as it is,
in and out, in and out,
as inevitable as breath.

MORNING CONTEST 

1 down:      a curious sign (8,4) 
                                                     QUESTION MARK 
         Why do we duel 
         every morning 
         in the spaces and blocks 
         of this strange diagram? 
3 across:     Elgar’s variations a mystery (6) 
                                                     ENIGMA 
         I peer myopically 
         over the cryptic codes 
         for some spark in the gloom. 
1 across:     at bay where treasure is sought in the ground (6) 
                                                     QUARRY 
         I am at bay 
         in these tiny cells. 
         You are confident, 
         pencil in the answers 
         with bold strokes 
         while I search 
         for a space— 
         at last triumphant. 
19 across:     in song love goes with it like a beast in old-fashioned transport (8) 
                                                     MARRIAGE (what else?) 
8 down:        the referee may give this call for an early meal when the going gets rough (9) 
                                                     BREAKFAST (we need him here!) 
28 across:    a verbal game not spoken by the peaceful (9) 
                                                     (but a war of words just the same) 
                                                     CROSSWORD 



Morning Contest first published in 1984, in The Smile on the Face of the Hunter (ed. T.H. Naisby, Nimrod Publications). 

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