Kay McKenzie Cooke

‘sacred days’

How I stalled,
hiding inside my head,
liking it there, cushioned.
Being in the world
as it was unfolding,

with the sun shining neat
on to footpaths, the rain's
dribble on to hedges
and patient mail-boxes,
the smell of cooped-up budgies,

the deep, warm bath
nine o'clock at night,
the creak of the passage;
all things that cluster
to form a town were bearable

if the edges were woolly
with fabrications. Rhododendrons
and marigolds to soften front yards.
The high school's highly-polished corridors,
shadowed bike-sheds,

lagged pipes in the pre-fabs.
The sound of clocks, of wooden walls
relaxing behind wallpaper.
The smell of coal.
All framework for dreams.

Oh and let's not forget
the heartbreak, the heartbreak
of newly-mown grass,
of any and every awful beauty.
Yes, and that ache

of double-hung windows,
of looking out at a world where hills
meet sky; the outside world,
its whole big, blue bluster,
its yodel and strut.

Note: The title of this poem, comes from a line in the song ‘Days’ written by Ray Davies and sung by The Kinks, 1969