The Promise of Sunlight

I remember your promise - 

how it coiled warm in my hand,

the shape of it: twined to spherical

and heavy as an egg.

It drove my tenderness upwards 

in the unstoppable motion 

of towards the sun, thrust

through the darkness of dirt,

squeezed along a narrow of light, and

needle threaded, back against brick,

where this landscape of tyrannies

might seem to be just another mountain.

But for the soothe of sought refuges -

the balm of air and yellow, unyielding god

of distant oaths and I return, inevitable,

year on year, lean here 

in renewed anticipation, suspended

in the aspic of recollection.

And you will ask my name again

as if the world had lost it,

as if I am only known when I appear,

forgotten and unfamiliar 

in the namelessness of absence.

Image is my own of some poppies I was pleased to see this morning growing, reminding me that pretty things can thrive even with the most inauspicious beginnings.