Twelve Sonnets A coves breadth lapping, rippling about one’s Almost bare limbs and body, its grey blue Tinged with green and day’s flashing reflections Glittering on waves that roll in and through. White arms thrust out and spreading feet and thighs Feel the unaware touch of August sea Whose coolness now makes mind aware, each rise And fall, of need, of stretching to swim free. There is freedom in one’s nerves, quite sudden; The bitter taste of brine is as last year And all one’s years, its touch, though, alien, And lazy in dazzle. Day winks one clear Of night whose surf and wind are only heard, Or cries from a lone, square-searching seabird. 2 Seeking a place in the world? Iis that all? The turbidity of this world, perhaps, Suits the manners by now though logical Of integrating self with a relapse Of consensus into compulsive change And ever-growing oppression, and thus Belonging: and the freedom here to range Beyond acceptance is invidious. But, God damn it, who can accept the storms And privations of humans’ own making? Why keep to any we know of the forms And cognizances while still forsaking All we know of what is both right and best In hopes of living with the savagest? 3 In the next is your hope: in the future Of distance and furthest limitation, Where clouds meet the arc of a great rondure, And the eyes narrow in imitation And just what they are seeing is unclear, Yet that they do see so far as they can Cheers you: there, the world backs up its sheer Wonder whatever you wish as a man. Much is unknown – and what comes next a truth Beyond the knowing: the silver river Lies gleaming beside hills and in wind’s crwth Dim notes of accompaniment shiver Or shimmer blue-green: a song speaks for you – In all we share, we shape the next anew. 4 As a gulfed treble and bass kind of song, Dawn seeps in, slowness on slowness – and there, The shortest night is over and seemed long Only as one waited for chanticleer, And then, to see the sun that would awake Shade and the spectrum with full light. Thankful That one met morning, perhaps, now, night’s ache Is seen as only identity’s pull. And yet, the loner or night-owl enjoyed His own mind and company down the nights Of other days, his disposition buoyed By study, any artificial light’s Pooled glow, and incidental sounds one hears From houses settling after many years. 5 Along the verge, a casual wind walks By squares of cool green shade a white sun cleaves; Dark from brewing anger, the fair-haired stalks Of nettles waver beyond pale-veined leaves Of darker cool and hanging keys – angled Out for their criss-cross tiers of saw-tooth, Hastate leaves of varied tint and tangled Light, to do well in practice if not sooth. Bitter with stings for mammals who may brush Close by them, the nettles show pinnacles Decked with seeds and cream flowerets in the flush Of the season, as though their slimness wells With rich feeling atop even malice Or age-old jealousies of avarice. 6 Chimney-cowl clanking in the rush of night And rain, the house may close in about me, But its creaking timbers expand despite The wind’s puissance as in obduracy They hunch over their poet and this page – Drinking in fresh moisture after the heat Of day, as does the thatched roof in whose age Are worse-worn gaps where reed and timber meet. Yet I hear how protective the structure Is above the whisper of cooling draught Of wet air from steel-framed lead lights, pressure Drives through: high in the pitch-dark roof-space aft Of my room, the scuffling squeaks of starlings And their chicks, sheltered from the storm’s whirlings. 7 More is homely than wisdom preconceives. Damp? Yes, but two-feet-thick walls of rubble Were robust-seeming under narrow eaves Woven from Norfolk reed. To redouble Sense of fortification, its front door Was of stout, banded oak with a ring-latch – Lead lights, architraves and mullions more Of the past on which dreamers’ minds could catch. Beneath my window over the deep porch, Front lawn boasted flags, sundial and stone seat, A high tree-screen of beech, holly and birch And side-balustrade of grey-grained concrete Ornate with moulded pineapples and lamp. So, where did this house even smell of damp? 8 As colour leaches back into stillness, No longer hidden by a neighbour’s place Or the curve of the earth, the sun’s progress Begins once again in primrose-gold grace And deep, grey-blue shadows her subjects own However they stand with light unless shade Overshadows them. The spectrum is known In childhood shine one hopes will never fade. Ringing, these lovely frequencies of far And close-to that one now may harmonize Consistently with, cheer one as they are, As the senses seek what sound deifies Still, and find, in the very pulse of rays, They warm as one to earth and summer days. 9 What is the point of growing old? Perhaps There is a short answer – to live and live The most thorough of quilts before fate wraps It up, every square as decorative, Yet bold and vivid in emblem, as grace And application make it - as sincere In both style and simplicity. To face Ageing is life itself for the Shaker. No matter that the ages ensuing Make coral of one’s treasured absolutes; To do good things for the love of doing And love because one gives - and distributes The best of one’s soul - will reach out to those For whom we helped shape beauty as we chose. 10 Gamelan on the Summer-scented air, Its lazy strokes each with spatial effect Even only as sound, to blend well where All things blend, softened in bronze-toned respect. Rhythms slow or blur to the pulse in things Or self accedes in a simple mildness Though not unconscious of older stirrings Beyond harmony or Summer to bless. When blackbird flutes and martins fling and dive, Crying, over houses and gardens calm With slower life, our music is alive To words and tones conformed in cupping palm Of earth to fingers light with paradise – In Nirvana of tea with Jasmine-spice. 11 The sea creeps in on the white-sandy beach. Here, the thinker, doting, fingers the wreath Of his own creation or knows true speech From beyond the verandah – far beneath The iron rail, on which he leans – is wrought, Its blue pallor silvery, though twilight, Now scarcely touched by sun is, in a thought Of delayed change, ebbing from day to night. Blue shadows are stark in the dulling sand As vegetation about the bay floats Empurpled at distance on either hand. Lights are burning in this mildness, on boats, On jetties and in town. What stars now sound Prick more faintly as night-thoughts of the drowned. 12 (Envoi) What chance for the dog-star, tracking star-sheep? His motion is ours, though sheep’s, too, are ours; But then, by jinking, by crouching in deep, Hard-staring command and stalking, his powers, Holding one or other flank, half-serry A flock and drive it to the soon-closed pen. His sweet craft, like a full soft blackberry, At any rate fails to be forgotten. Yet any star can dog one, as the Earth Steals on to make that possible, and, too, The system’s near planets stare out one’s worth From dusk-horizon or higher, and through Names of deities, impress more than suns Of unknown protégés and persuasions. Copyright, Mike Burrows, 03/07/14
Posted on: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 06:24:20 +0000
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