Past lives

For mum, it was all
a bit prosaic -
she was called Gillian
she had on ugly shoes
she was at the edge of a cliff-

but didn't jump
until later when taken back
to smallhold drudgery
sometime around 1412
a bad year all round.

In Brisbane, I am told
that for 7 lives I have
trudged the furrows of a convent
my seer traces a dry thumb
where my wimple sat.

Any jokes I crack
about making up in this life
are lost as she hums incantations
of herb rows and lost vows
and filthy monks.

The past has never been
another country -
I sit beatific
in all my habits
plotting next lives.