Баща и син/Father and son

For Nikola and Sam

The thump and weight of the newborn –

I thought I’d got used to it, but there,

amongst monitors, gowns, a choice

of CDs and the news of an assassination,

he rose up from IV scans and screamed.

In those conversational cross-currents,

some kind of bond began and down

corridors busy with emergencies,

he arrived in time – first breath

with the definite hesitancy

of an opening chord: outline

of a knowledge which would grow

and sharpen with every shift and jag –

the mornings waking up

with this whole new life between us.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Поглеждайки нагоре/Looking up

Flat out on a hillock,

we’d lie in wait

for perspective shifts,

the great curve,

the rolling of the earth.

Nothing so much

disturbed our view

of high-altitude jet streaks,

cumulus hatching into

the far sky’s

inverted geography.

Amongst ambitions

flitting and darting

across the flight paths

of swallows, we’d plot

dispersal routes, ways out

through bracken beds –

not back up the lane

but over fenced land

where cattle hulked

and lives in future tense

took shape with all

the fixity of vapour.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Жена с лешникови очи/Woman with hazel eyes

I can’t say much

because those details

at the roadside

are no more than clues.

Cattle grunted and shifted.

We lit cigarettes.

We talked again

of where we were.

I was at a loss

in this geography.

On the city streets,

I was far more at home.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Геология/Geology

Out in the deep blue,

the crumpled plates of our world

are locative coordinates

in this landscape that eludes

all metaphors and similes.

We are here –

and unexpectedly –

like records of old fishing towns,

mismatched maps,

a staggered memory

of being in or on or at.

Colour is a blaze

across the ice fields,

an extravagance,

a touching base.

Against the swell of the Earth,

rock faces sheer against horizons.

The red flare billows out and snaps

against those vagaries, our words.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Сутрешни маргаритки/Morning daisies

One morning, I will surprise you.

One morning, while you sleep,

I will shrug off another hangover

slip back into yesterday’s clothes,

take pains on tip-toe not to wake you

and let myself out with only

the lightest click of the latch.

One morning, the sun will gild

the clouds’ underbelly

while first early workers sling

files on the backseats of cars.

One morning, I will thread

my way through spent cans,

recycling bins, lost tickets,

ripped-out circuit boards

and trespass over walls

with the neighbourhood cats.

One morning, there will be

no news whatsoever

and the radio will hum

with a negligible silence

while the gift I return with

will have got there

I don’t know how.

One morning, you will see

a day’s weather prospects

in changed light patterns

and we will relent

our differences one morning

in the cut smell of flowers

and you will surprise yourself.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Удобство на зимата/Comfort of winter

A comfort of winter,

this steady, soft fall

furs edges, branches, hushes –

brings close the low sky.

In the immediacies of snow,

we might be walking

through the aftermath

of our own breath,

as if gusted back

into childhood’s

glaze and forests

forever stretching outward –

until reaching into the winter

we’ll find comfort

in knowing that now

there's not so long to wait

until we reach shelter.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips

Виждам/I See

Across from the picture windows

of a 1930s hotel, light plunges

at cove water, digs up soft turquoise

while you’re labouring up

its bracketing cliffs.

And this is our beginning,

some thirty years ago,

chance meetings, quirks

of fate, endurance

in the face of uphill climbs.

Do we have to go back over

all that now? I doubt it.

Tidal stones shoulder parked boats.

We should walk by this stream –

at the stile we’ve already forgotten

the questions we were going to ask.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips