A Poem by Tim Cumming

Stairs

This poem is for Natasha Cumming

I used a tub of of hard-wearing
yacht paint for the stairs after
my wife moved out to her cousin’s
for a while and I thought that stairs
painted the pearly white of dawn
would be a solution for all our cares,
despite knowing how it wears,
the way pearly white dawns will do.
I knelt in front of our bedroom
and painted from the top step down,
retracing my way three times
over three days, like a hero in a fairytale.
These were, after all, the stairs where our
daughter learnt to climb and crawl,
the top step a precipice from which
she’d let go and fall with a cry
of relish all the way down before
climbing back up into the cavity
of another tale we’d spin together,
as if our stories were stairs that
go on for ever, winding their way
through wonders and dangers
that sometimes turn real, and when
they do, love, we do not let go.

Tim Cumming has published 10 collections since 1991’s The Miniature Estate with Smith/Doorstop. Recent books include Knuckle (2019, Pitt Street Poetry, Sydney, Australia) and Adventures Among the Living published by Blueprint Poetry in 2022. His work has appeared in the W. S. Graham anthology The Caught Habits of Language, and Bloodaxe Books’ Identity Parade. In 2007, he made the BBC documentary Hawkwind: Do Not Panic. Find his art, poetry and music at his Wordpress site.