Caroline Carver took us on a mouse trail to a house at Tregew,
and through it to the bower.
it was a dark and stormy night
but good company, a circle of quiet poetry and writing.

Recipe:

a mystery
a poem
some rice and pea
some jamaican rum cake
a splash of ginger wine
a sip of sloe gin
a wash of beer

and a Poem:

Vespers

I

Neither walls nor stone
carapace shell echoes
underpin the drying paint

Nor the wild tracks in the rain
muttering through leaf and bower

Nor the drip – metal bell chime
erratic tock of night

The hosts return
the door only briefly
ajar
one decahedron sided shell
closed

Imagine the warmth
t-shirt thick
solid as light at night
piercing silhouettes
briefly
like body armour
saving frail skin from sliding paths

perfection gathering instructions scrawled
into recipes

a dozen breaths but one whispering to owls
as the roof pelts ricocheted rain
heavenward in the dark
tear ghosts splashing up
gathering
together in this food

the scrawls, a page tearing
echoes
spiral bound notes ripping
the sound of night driving back the sky
road black, cloud black
streets and stone
glisten and glow

II

I thought of you
and my phone was off
I wanted to say
goodnight
and see if we
by chance
had seen
the same dream
in passing
of your father’s house
of how it holds
against the day.

24/11/10    mac dunlop