Shuttling threads through your Jesse
tree,
star shafts warped between the
shadows,
you told of castles and princes slain
until your tale span out, clipped
short
as the words on your tongue.
You bequeathed those early weavings
as moonshine cobwebbed the crystal
gates
against your idle fingers. No
cobbling now;
daydreams tangle my nightly loom.
You corded a ladder down the years,
reaching the lacings mazed about our
roots.
The tap-dripped drop’s lost in a bowl
while inconspicuous ants are blown to dust.
Our quickened selves have ghosthood as our
goal.
The universe? It passes – as we must.
These
days,
I
rarely see the particular
unless
I am lured by the rose,
the
effective daffodil,
sheet
rain as it slopes blue
down
roof slates.
My
eyes are for blue
beyond
the seasoned sky,
its
rainbows, its rushing dawns,
a
flash to uplift grass
greyed
at the root
by
my worn shoes.
When
I am bigger, I will cull clouds,
puffs
blown out of the endless.
I
will pull down all the days’ darks,
watch
cobwebs crackle to dust.
I
will polish the blue
so
it brightens to white
and
light light
The poem in the post below this one, "October," is decades old and was published by the magazine, "Poetry Review," back then.
Now, I'd rewrite bits of it, tighten it up and get rid of that
toe-curlingly awful inversion at the start of it. The poetic past comes
back to haunt, eh!
Crisp gold are the leaves in the
garden,
brittle for burning.
I choke on the musky smoke of the
bonfire
and my eye sting
as warm ashes are raked over scorched
ground.
Now I cannot tell
which are autumn’s leavings,
It's
clay and clings, this earth,
chopped,
shaped. It lies
in
lumps where weeds decay
and
garden debris burns.
New
soil fills the hollow
now,
strong for flower
after
leaf down where roots
keep,
distant from air,
where
future shoots probe safe.
Race over
the lawn, scrap
game away, stopped by
a
bite of balled geranium,
your
daughters argue above
tough
docks growing, son’s
eyes aslant
of grasslings
shivering
resilient
on that
clot of clumps
long in our sight.
On
the edge of the New Town,
pilasters
piled in view,
terrace
grimed behind,
me
in months down to an island:
you
deck-hopping, a-chatter to all;
those
boats bobbing showy
