Elegy
Go home
shut your eyes know the silence
of a day without wind
where wooden sinews buttress
thirty shining metres of grey trunk below
the lowest branches of a black canopy
that shades a path where pink flowers lie browning,
crush them against your face as you did that day
know what petals lose when they fall
count the cries of a fruit-dove,
listen to leaf-shade as it mottles bark
mould as it subsides five-fingered leaves luxuriating
part a tangle of vines spot a tiny green hump
clinging to the underside of a branch
knees bent white eyed tree-frog
sweat drops ants scramble
each insect grips an egg like a rice-grain
the way a dog carries a stick
a screech twist your neck towards the blue
black wings with yellow stripes bills like capsized canoes
sailing across
thick foliage a hollow lilies spot-lit by sunlight
I brought some home their scent
permeated every room
Classic
Alone at a table
gaze always tight to herself,
a thin woman watches her coffee,
sharp against the light.
She stands, turns for her coat,
one fluid movement of pale brown wool
over a body slim as a pillar,
the pose of a caryatid without its fullness
outlined against an old-fashioned lace curtain
that veils a market place and women
with shapes easy-going as potatoes,
her dress the colour of a scrubbed tuber
heavy and free to swing
less revealing than fine, sculpted linen.
She sees me watching,
balances her head
comfortably on her spine.
Chopsticks
No candles – the place just a café
they’d dropped into after a lecture –
and perhaps it was the awkwardness
of trying to pick up water chestnuts
with implements that kept their right hands
at such an unfamiliar angle to their mouths
that made them look up at the same moment
and she was finding a way into eyes
she’d often seen expand as if their owner
were having a revelation. Now
they were still, focussed on her,
two right hands were stuck in the air,
she was sucking in rays, thinking
she’d read about this, it was happening
and she was fumbling; not that there was
any question this was the right person,
she wasn’t actually blinded – more
checked by the fierceness of that shining,
keeping her eyes up, eating the moment.
Swotting
Saturday afternoon in the library,
every seat taken, we’re swotting for finals.
A cuckoo keeps on outside the window,
Come out, make love, you’re wasting the sunshine.
We take no notice, boning up on things
that exercise the minds of academics
e.g. did Plato slip once and imagine
the Being-of-a-Horse eating grass?
If so, perhaps he wasn’t wrong,
just slid over into contemplation –
pure existence galloping – there’s
a subject for a wild-life photographer –
track it into its habitat, hide
till it stands still – a lifetime’s affair
which could be multi-media – there’s scope
for paint music words silent gazing
The examiners aren’t interested in guff.
What you need is results. That bird
is a model of self-indulgence. It
doesn’t even look after its own egg.
Leave a Reply