We have travelled far,
Following our own faded footprints,
Travelled far and still so far to travel.
For my part
I linger in the garden.
A pleasant place to start
This deliquescent part of a longer story.
I find dandelions to iron up, else clock to seed,
Grass to dispossess of the path edges.
Under the magnolia the corner is bone bare,
A periwinkle would grow there.
The fence needs nailing from the fox,
Terracotta pots to irrigate,
Check the cuttings from next door,
Give the shed floor a sweep.
The sweep and turn of arched leaf-ways,
Yearning to frame an old Dutch figure,
Lead to a pool green lawn;
A tumble of colours;
The fine art of a flower’s centre;
Where I soak
A warm afternoon in a mossy chair;
Flowers flavour the air
And I smile at my good fortune.
Clouds imagine landscapes in a knowing sky,
Branches scything, waving, dancing and beckoning, beckoning.
The weaving of plants and insects
Threads through me. A loom of colours,
All spun from the light of the same sun.
I am the same cloth,
The same mind as all thought,
A single silk,
The whole tapestry.
“Well met good neighbour on this good afternoon;
Thank you for your thought, though
I do not think any explanation will do well;
A superstition might invoke a friendly spirit;
The book is just a book from the library.”
Why that closed look ?
On such a day as this, there can be peace,
Indeed, what other meaning is needed ?
This other started, seemed a common soaking
Before the hail began, spite hurled, stinging,
The sky weighted and the ground loosening.
Wind raging, mourning, drove a war horse through.
I am white cold, wet lashed and beaten blue.
I hear a mandrake’s scream in this storm’s baleful force.
The flood unwinds, insistent, rising,
Stirring dread up with it.
Snakes around the tree,
Tests its oily strength, raises its black coil.
My heart broke with the first snap,
A crack that made the huge thing shudder.
My inner sinews were clenched against its inevitable motion.
A graceful giant, aghast at its angle,
Gathering a rage of shattering and clattering and splashing and seething.
A hollow roar into the darkness
An indifferent current shrugs over the carcass.
Terror foamed, “Let go”, and plunged,
Pleaded, “For God’s sake let go”, deepened,
Despair the wretched rag of child,
Chilled, drowned and trapped.
Trapped - would not let go,
(The only hope, that small hand)
Screamed, was smashed with a sledge of timber,
Filthy flotsam, gaping, gone.
I remained
Documents must be obtained
There is no pity here or anaesthesia
I am paid well but the market stalls have nothing to sell
Failures of loyalty, minor theft, sour words
Trapped birds in my hours of dreaming
I wake suddenly, remembering a window left open,
An absurd anxiety about a hollow wall with the roof broken.
What, you here ?
I want none of your false cheer or your phony news.
I can see what this all means.
It needs no further explanation.
It means nothing.
Indeed, what other meaning is needed ?
The soil is more fertile since the flood.
Soon the new glade will be a young wood.
The ruin is sold, there is talk of a road.
The old winter is gentle, ground swept white,
Curtains drawn from the trees,
Air clear through, to the open horizon,
Short days. In this season,
I wake hoping for fresh skies to walk in.
At just the thought of spring, she was there,
Perhaps she had always been.
She talked about trouble with foxes,
Whispered to me, “I want to go away”.
She is uncanny and more subtle,
I want to stay, I have an idea,
I might learn some lore from foxes.
She has a room with north facing windows,
Sketches, postcards, passports.
I paint Bedouin tents and hot dry landscapes,
The bright silence in the beauty of the desert.
We have become the slow drip of stalactites
Or the building of a cairn, stone by stone.
We can savour the whole adventure
Or sing of a favourite chapter.
Young people are always more eager,
The old are more wry and more weary
And every straw is guilty of a camel’s broken back.
Knock, and the door will take the shape of your beating hand,
Ask, and the answer will be filled with your own sound.
I notice that you go into a gloomy building and hang your head.
What is it that you do not wish to see ?
Come, climb the hill with me.
I like to climb high, above the waters.
We can go today.
We will see how far we can see,
Indeed, what other meaning is needed ?
