Five Poems by John Drudge

 

Farmhouse in Tuscany 

 

High on a hill 

In the Tuscan light   

Weathered stone  

And sunburnt clay 

Its ochred bones  

Tangled in green arteries  

Olive trees  

Holding secrets  

From the wind 

And the cypress sentinels 

Tall and lean 

And mournful 

Stabbing at the sky’s  

Soft belly  

The walls  

Thick with the breath  

Of centuries  

The hearth a red-mouthed ghost  

Swallowing the evening’s silence 

And beyond the fields  

The sun sinks slow  

And swollen 

Bleeding its last gold  

Into the furrows  

As night creeps in 

Black as dreaming

Harbour Rain 

 

Burning 

With impatience 

And inflamed 

By lost chances 

Pilloried 

In the stocks of neglect 

And tempered 

By impermanence 

With the sound 

Of crashing  

Shipwrecked hearts 

On the rocks 

In a small inlet harbour 

In the rain

Accidents 

 

Pale and warm 

Conspiratorial 

Languid 

In the dreaming parts 

Of childish minds 

Twisted up suddenly 

In the widening light 

Of awakening 

Living by accidents 

Of terrain and birth 

Where we either  

Reap the harvest 

Of the morning 

Or dig the graves 

For the dead 

In the cold  

Moonlight

Roads 

 

From a certain time 

In another place 

Snippets of meaning 

Pieces of a whole 

Glued together 

Over brief moments 

In the shifting sand 

With the sweeping winds 

Of history blowing 

And scribes 

Chiselling truths  

In sacred stone 

Anchors for dreams 
To fasten to 
Against the tide  

With jagged lines 
Bearing the weight 
Of what remains

Pathways 

 

Keeping the secrets 

Of our ancestors 

Tapping the tales 

Of crumbling walls 

To the foundation 

Of our stories 

The pinnacle  

Of it all 

Where we return  

To plants and soil 

Without fanfare 

Or tribute 

In particularly  

Ordinary ways 

Rising and falling 

Down winding  

Pathways 

Through the trees 

The air brimming 
With the weight of time 
And each step 
Remembering

  

John Drudge is a social worker working in the field of disability management and holds degrees in social work, rehabilitation services, and psychology.  He is the author of seven books of poetry: “March” (2019), “The Seasons of Us” (2019), New Days (2020), Fragments (2021), A Long Walk (2023), A Curious Art (2024) and Sojourns (2024) . His work has appeared widely in literary journals, magazines, and anthologies internationally. John is also a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and lives in Caledon Ontario, Canada with his wife and two children.