Waiting for Jonathan (15.01.2020)

Lucy Dougan

On the day of the night you are born
outside my window
the kestrel keeps patiently tending
her quiet nest
and the tele-tower spins around
its Good Morning London yet again,
an exclamation point
flashing inside the monochromes
of leafless boughs and disowned wintry decks.

Restless in the night before,
and thinking of your mother labouring,
I start a family tree,
watching at first in delight
its spectral auto-populations
all heading South to one small parish,
a reprise of names and occupations
as if my ancestors came out of a DIY kit;
becoming then enraged at the search engine:
no extra-marital partners and lines snuffing out,
petering out with many of the women,
when why should that be so?
And feeling lost, unmoored, wild,
I thought, but not today little one, not today.
Across the pond you are making yourself known.

Into that day and still no news.
In my mother’s hand-me-down handbag
a note I kept that is headed
“My Whereabouts”.
In my jetlag, sharing her initials,
I wonder is it me whose location is in doubt.
But it is your whereabouts, dear heart,
at this pressing moment, at this precise moment,
of which I can’t be sure of yet, of which I can’t let go.

I catch a clipper
to land outside The Globe
with the TfL cheerily proclaiming
Thou art here (another exclamation).
Thank Christ and all the Apostles
is all I can muster in reply.
We are found.
I wander aimlessly by the Thames
and her miraculous traffic…
Thou art here thou art here Isis laps….
A seagull flaps into my phone’s distracted lens
so flukily, so lively-like
and tethers my heart back to my nest
building kestrel across the town.
I have watched her at daybreak and nightfall
as bells rang out from a church I never bothered to find.
Your family tree
so much your own
will be what you make it.
Track or lose it, never mind,
we run on, carry on.

Very early the next day,
your father’s voice joyous and uncertain
is netted into my bedsit
by the faithful tower.
O good morning! Yes, good morning!
Tomorrow my eyes will fall not here
but on the city of your birth and snow!