Think Again

A gifted body,
crafted from the best grade
flesh and springs,
with the thorn they plucked
from the lion's paw
now deep in the heel
of that body's foot.

This is good sense
misguided by a narrow point
of view. You wanted to reach

into your hamper of ideas
and share them around.
Chestnuts for a hot summer?
Peaches for winter?

Not to worry:
think of it like the stone
you gathered for a house
but ended up using for a path,

or think of those people
who make jewellery from bones.
Somewhere, there has to be
a false start.

Berth

See there, where the land moves
and sparkles like tinsel?
That is the ocean,
and those things that float on it
like pieces of a kitchen,
they are boats,
and all of this together
is what we call the marina.

Oh, you have heard of pirates?

Yes, I guess this is where
it might all begin,
healing or horrid,
ushered in by a few fattened gulls
and the bittersweet smell
of petrol being coughed
through olive water.

Yes, there are things out there
that are only to be found alone,
and which mostly stay out there.

Of course, if you don't like the idea
of the sun cooking up storms,
of days of rain,
you can always stay here
at this seaside cafe.

But let's just wait and see.
When we turn our backs
on this half-erected circus
the trees might suddenly
seem quite silly,
and the firm ground
much too shallow.

Yes, I agree,
if you had to choose one,
then that one there would be good.
Yes, it does have character.
It just seems to give
so much purpose to its wood.

Drawkward

Holding the line
is difficult.

The cult of difference
(that is, not holding the line
in a drawkward way)
is unevenly more difficult.

All this time
that you were trying to hold
the line,
it was finding
its own shape,

becoming
as rough as knuckles,
as uncertain
and as certain
as a coastline.
Occasionally

it treated you
to an act of retreat -

a place where you could take hold
of the difficult
outline of events,

a place where you could draw
on the truth
that the truth
is only ever
awkward,

even when it is even.

Take, for instance
the distance
between you
and the point
of your making a difference -

globes blow,
planes fall,
chocolate makes
you quake,
but the audience

live for incursions,
and then live on
for that question:
And let's now see
how he or she
goes about 
holding the line.

Willowfeed

We will fell willows
by the river

when summer has rattled
the cattle feed.

When willow limbs fall
by the river

their cascade will call
to the cattle.

Each year, we wander
farther upriver.


                                  (2003)

8am Skater

So there was a gentle decline,
and the sky that morning
was crystalline,
but it was the way
she stood on her board,
like a Degas dancer,
or as if before
a flattering mirror.

She swept down the hill,
face tilted in the wind,
propelled by the willing world
past us walkers
who were hooked on the corner
waiting for the lights to change.

She made pedalling seem pedestrian.

When you move like that
all human ports
and all shores of work
matter for naught,
because you
are the moment.