Where moss is gold in the copper pools

my mother dreams her mother on the road,

sitting up ahead, among whistled reeds

and ocean steaming rocks.  Up and out

of her hospital bed, her wound stitched

and silvering beneath her night-clothes.

Quietly, she slips her cardigan off and starts

to unravel it, both hands working and steady

until she has teased it apart completely.

And begins again.  Famine-road, mine-road,

moss stitch; like grass swallowed down a shaft

the wool quivers up again towards her lap,

her eyes cast down, needles tapping out the work,

its strangeness, until it heals her, the old

movements long clenched and deep in her hands.

I dream them now together in mountain light

leading each other where the road winds down,

and carries on, past where they thought it would end.