The Water

Doubt thou… 

*
Doubt thou, the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt, I love.

Shakespeare

* * *

The Moment

Margaret Atwood
 

The moment when, after many years

of hard work and a long voyage

you stand in the centre of your room,

house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,

knowing at last how you got there,

and say, I own this,

is the same moment the trees unloose

their soft arms from around you,

the birds take back their language,

the cliffs fissure and collapse,

the air moves back from you like a wave

and you can’t breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.

You were a visitor, time after time

climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.

We never belonged to you.

You found us.

It was always the other way round.

 * * *

Bild: Portait of a Lady, Chaim Soutine, Bührle collection, Zürich

For my father

The Mirror
Frances Vetter

The opposite of vanity

my father’s request for a mirror

a few days

before he died.

Was it some sort of inner quest

a searching of form in formlessness,

a finding of clues

in a puddle of glass ?

Or perhaps he’d just remembered

the photos he’d seen on the mobile screen

of my sister’s phone

the day before.

Was he asking for the brand new toy,

calling it by the name of the old,

the hand mirror

of changing faces?

Captivated by invention

his mind alert to new-fangled things,

to innovation;

he wanted to have a look.

They brought my father the mirror

It was on a Christmas morning.

But his humble smile

has left its trace

on the face of my phone now,

forever…

25th February 2010

I wrote this for my father, R.I.P. who died 30th December 2009. He was a wonderful man!

* * *

The Sunlight on the Garden

Louis Macneice

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold;
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.

Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.

The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying

And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.

The Lake
Edgar Allan Poe

In youth’s spring, it was my lot
To haunt of the wide earth a spot
To which I could not love the less
So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound
And the tall trees that towered around

But when the night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot as upon all
And the wind would pass me by
In its stilly melody

My infant spirit would awake
To the terror of the lone lake
My infant spirit would awake
To the terror of the lone lake

Yet that terror was not fright
But a tremulous delight
And a feeling undefined
Springing from a darkened mind
Death was in that poisoned wave
And in its gulf a fitting grave
For him who thence could solace bring
To his dark imagining
Whose wildering thought could even make
An Eden of that dim lake

But when the night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot as upon all
And the wind would pass me by
In its stilly melody

My infant spirit would awake
To the terror of the lone lake
My infant spirit would awake
To the terror of the lone lake

Springing from a darkened mind
So lovely was the loneliness
In youth’s spring, it was my lot
In its stilly melody
An Eden of that dim lake
An Eden of that dim lake
Lone, lone, lonely…

Kusanagi

Maybe the Japanese knife man

is going to lift me

put me in his pocket

like a tiny jade comb

take me along with him

looking for that lost shoe.

Now I can feel that blue

electric blue light sparking

steel on a yielding stone,

my heart.

F. V.

7th February 2010

Kusanagi is a legendary Japanese sword.

* * *