“Those you planted as children, ah, those trees
are long since too heavy for you to bear.”
. (Rainer Maria Rilke)
Softly, slowly leaking time:
Soft as rain – these
memories are soft as rain,
now falling on old statues
in a long abandoned park.
Here’s a general and there
a king of some old country
no-one really knows
what happened to.
Memories – of summer [...]
“Till human voices wake us, and we drown.”
. (T.S. Eliot)
In love and worship the mundane
becomes possessed by symbol.
The fruits of wheat and vine
translate into the flesh and blood
of Saviours -
as this small bit of cloth you left
beside your plate,
stained with chicken juice
and traces of your lipstick,
now becomes a holy relic;
something held and touched by you,
by [...]
“I want
to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”
. (Pablo Neruda)
Is it a kindness that I still
can hear your voice;
your whispers drawing maps
our flesh must follow?
That I, eyes closed,
can see your fingers tightening,
your back now sharply rising
like a victory arch?
That I, so far away,
can smell the salty,
swollen, opening furnace
where my tongue must [...]
“God, or someone, had parted the sea, and who were we
to say we weren’t going to walk through it?”
. (Moniza Alvi)
I have no words for this:
The way we climbed this stack of stone -
how sun and shadow chased each other
and the old tar road that had carried us
from the city to your cottage and now [...]
“You go your way
I’ll go your way too”
. (Leonard Cohen)
I watch you take the scissors
to the browning ends of the leaves
on the old potted plant
that hangs from the ceiling.
You bring a perfect sense of concentration
to all the things you do:
From pouring out the tea
into your grandmother’s old cups,
to spreading honey on your toast
and [...]
“In the long willow branches, the dark cypress,
my own ghost hides, stares out at me,”
. (Moniza Alvi)
It’s a long fall,
in the darkness, leaking from
the time between each
ringing of the bells,
to where the eyes seek out
the worlds beyond the cracked map,
painted on the ceiling:
A long way back to you, my love.
Whether ’tis in us to arise with day
And save ourselves unaided.
. (Robert Frost)
I turn to you – to the wallpaper side
of the bed: A wall of fading roses
on yellowing fake brocade; a dying
dream of people now long gone,
to turn a drab, Party approved apartment
into something close to
fin de siècle decadent and gay.
I turn to you [...]
“The roses you tread
will envy your mouth”
. (Rubén Darío)
As we climbed the mountain:
You with your camera,
me with my flask of tea;
you, dressed in morning light,
ribboned with cloud,
me, like gravity’s supplicant;
you, your limbs and your
curious eyes and your dark
streaming hair in total control;
me, simply following you
up the mountain: Ready to
carry your knife or be lamb.
As we [...]