Listening to ‘The Lark Ascending’
I listen to
swells
and
falls of the lark
in Williams’ grand tribute to
Albion,
before the death of Europe
at Sarajevo.
Close eyes allowing enough light to
filter through
The river slit, which sways to stillness
like a lost leaf.
Then a band of jet skis
carve
foamed wedges
Through the brown current
Lads ecstatic in the
Promise of summer.
In suspended
Half
thought,
Unable to reconcile
scratched sclerophyll
With the wet loam of bro ken lineage,
Another lost colonial,
unwanted here and home.
Leaning back on the concrete step as
A water dragon emerges from
Leaf to
river edge.
Slip of motion. Tail tracing in dusk.
A duck now beats wings brow beam in sun.
Now the gargling ardea modesta dips its beak
Morpeth
under bridge.
Hear the boys whoop as they spear through in
A Powercat, off to the great opening
by the breakwall raising dew-dropped beers
As I offer a weak salute,
In vain returning to some fusty daydream
of twittering swallows and bleating lambs in a
vague notion of Pastoral.
Last Hours
In all seasons we endured for love:
Love of self and other;
Love for change, continuity;
Soft petal bloom and decay.
Then came years of trial,
Where we tested the fabric of
Our resolve, which, torn through,
We glimpsed beyond the veil
Briefly, into matter that shrouded
Depth, our vision, then fled the
Coming light bounding through
To blind us again, give our illusions,
Circus raiment of our souls;
The consequence we knew not,
And wished to leave for
Those final hours with
Angels of Horror.
In starlight
Bathed in the spirit of a fallen star.
As you gaze at me, resolute,
Strip my naked flesh until
All is exposed in starlight, my soul.
Line upon line,
Word over word,
Root, clay and loam
The earth’s instruments of
Hidden prayer.
A single seed pulses out from
Wet, rotting leaf;
We sing in harmony under
The starry court of heaven.