Dancing Dust
	Poems by Mollie Caird (1922-2000)
	To George: Lent 1985
Home Alphabetic index of poems Thematic index of poems Biography Gallery Contact and links	Remember the Cretan sky and the nameless monastery Beached in a gold-gorse, lavender-purple sea? There, between dusty trackway and ancient olive grove We sat in the shade close, close together as always, Eating pistachio nuts from a paper bag, And watched a sardinia warbler tirelessly shuttling Beakfuls of flies to her hungry brood in a bramble. Then came the hoopoes and cuckoos threading the pines, Perching about us and calling their magical names In a northward pause en route for a colder spring. Some blisses are not for recapture: fools to return, We crunched underfoot next day not our nutshells But red cartridge cases.  The thicket was silent. I gathered the feathers, extravagant hoopoe feathers With their elegant sharply improbable stripes, And I wept, and you tried to comfort me. I thought I knew why I was weeping, But I did not know, not until now. Now I weep and you cannot comfort me; Huddled in your old anorak’s discarded plumage, I have come to a colder spring. 1985