Pass me the horse hair brush steeped in colours of earth.

I will paint you our beginnings.

In sleep, you flee from leopards, bison, wolves.

Harness their dream-spirits,

tame them on the walls, and you’ll rest fearless.

Your loss is charcoal-black;

your anger – a quiver of hematite

arrows; the calcite-white of your silence/a curtain between us.

Daughter, we can’t linger in this cave-light.

Time’s a virus plundering our settlements.

We must immortalise our hands

in ochre, umber, malachite.

 

Kitty's collection The Impact of Limited Time is available from Indigo Books: www.indigodreams.co.uk/kitty-donnelly