Andy Brown lives in Devon, U.K. He has published three poetry collections, From A Cliff (Arc, 2002), The Wanderer's Prayer (Arc, 1999) and West of Yesterday (Stride, 1998). He is Lecturer of Creative Writing & Arts at Exeter University.

Landscape with Mountains Who am I? That's a good question, but before we tackle it, please submit it in writing, in triplicate, giving us time to find another story - perhaps the one about those of us who never leave home, unless it is to search for life, guessing which way to head. There's a story to still the heart! For the roads it describes lead back through years of self-satisfied comfort. We chase the same unchanging lures as we lumber along, searching the angles of night & strings of attachment, until we find ourselves in firm defeat en route to the mountain. The water that flows from its peak surprises us, even though we know it is the source. We lie enmeshed in songs that drift down from the high meadows; revel in the view; drink wine & eat our fill of the exhausted sun that strides the long horizon. There in the distance the harbour catches the last of the light, to the clatter of rigging. Lovers line the seawall, blind to all but the sea.           Now, about that question... Chess Moves After the passionate debates are over about us doing what is right, or not, we make our way back to the heart or what we call the heart, but mean as somewhere other within us, near the border of where we are & where we'd like to be -                     but just as chess moves gain their meanings later in the game, we come to find the heart is sometimes missing & have to stand behind the things we said - as one would stand behind a poker hand, or throw of dice - facing each other, staring at our feet; wondering if we're rooting in the dust. An Old Cartoon The sun unwinds itself from night's monsoon. It is as if we've slept in separate beds & yet I wake to the imagined smile behind your sleeping face, tired of being alone, or rather, welcoming the small everyday acts that raise their heads again & again in cheerful tones, flickering in stop-start frames, as in an old cartoon. It takes all day to reach the other us, the truthful one that lies beneath the surface of this game. Our hope lies in the scripts we read & in our reading gathering hints of what lights up the paper from inside; for love's a lantern & isn't it burning bright?