Oxygen
i
It’s in the off-white squares of the plan
for the new house, the two whole bedrooms,
half-moon doors, and five children
poring over it. In grass to bare feet,
the steep of garden falling
to a stream, curl of petticoats
on take-off and laced shadows
of blackcurrant leaves. A shifting
geometry of air in the spin
of cricket balls, the lime and lilac
cage of the mantel, in your mother’s
warning and the flame and the way
you give it tongue, this life, like
the first breath of sun on the metal
rim of a liner in dry dock, crescent
with promise, repeatedly.
And later, in the rise and fall of
Southampton Water, abstractedly
opening a window from the sickroom
for the view, a breathing space:
the hills’ self-containment above
a riot of small boats like the one
you joked of owning: the quick of it,
the flying white of its wake.
ii
Glory is a bicycle in June
Queen Anne’s lace pointilliste edging the hollow lane
and the sky flying like fabric treadled from a machine
in fits and starts, the earth’s curve
rising through your spine, the spinning wheel
whistling a hole in the air and closing it behind.
Is land enough for a house grafted pouch
by seed-head pouch and yours for the husbanding,
sunspots like sparks flying upwards, kretch
of gravel or the pause on the horizon
brow of the hill as a trout steadying itself
against the stream by the pulse of its tail,
flicker of gills its near-imperceptible breathing
before the plunge, the wake rising effervescent,
the sky’s pierced blue carillon.
iii
Close as the roughened reverse of embroideries,
the garden a needling of pine,
the chestnut-knuckled earth.
Root-system of the back of the hand, weeding,
and at the back of the mind, the house
clear as a bell in the forest’s sussuration.
Close as the roughened reverse of embroideries
the overspill of a piano scales
the chestnut-knuckled earth,
wooden flats of conkers and croquet.
Steps on the crazy paving, a white dress
clear as a bell in the forest’s sussuration
at twilight, twigs backing up the sky.
The overspill of a piano, scales
branching into a nave, a steeple.
The house light as a leaf in the clearing:
steps on the crazy paving, a white dress
(a flame turned up high, irridescent) iris
at twilight. Twigs backing up the sky,
a hand against the glass on the landing,
the solid oak boards treading air
(the house as light as a leaf in the clearing).
Oil husbanded in the Aladdin lamp:
the flame turned high (irridescent, iris)
catching against lichens on the sill, fingers
fluttering nave and steeple against the glass,
the solid oak boards. Treading air,
the passing bulk of the white horse Casablanca –
like oil husbanded in the Aladdin lamp,
the story of his bolting, like twigs, lichens, moss
adrift at the back of the mind. Like the house.
iv
It’s in the all-clear each morning
at five, taking the deep green
steps down into the day, in
the silence of the house brimming
over a hymn’s skyline –
the first three bars of it startled
through light-dividing banisters and
the spun silk sheets of the air,
rising
my mind to me
Is in the setting, the children’s
boats, soda-powered, rocking in
their basin, in the crescent
half moons of teacups running
estuarine as a train’s passage
cradles the house on its foundations.
Is knowing that down the line
they’ve taken away the sandbags
at Eastleigh; that when at night
the moon in the black-out beyond
the black-out soars like a voluntary
over the deep central well of the house
the lamp in the hand mounts steadily
to meet it as the voice in the kitchen
rounds – my spirit sang all day –
like a naked flame against the glass.
v
As if it were still possible to see you
each evening upright at the polished oak
uprights of the gate-legged table
and turning up the lamp to enter
in the bright excluding circle the detail
of the day’s expenditure as if
when you fill the sleek blue pen with
your left hand, then with your right
record in flourishing italic Tuesday,
5 April, it’s not the dry goods
you’re intent upon, the tea, flour,
sugar, strong tape to mend apron,
not even the rare walking shoes,
pink beads for Mary, or the discovery
that after the doctor’s fee, steak,
eggs, there is still, at the week’s end,
a shilling to spare: no, it’s rather
as if, cycling home from Lyndhurst
or Romsey you saw the road an almost
Roman swathe through the forest and
saw it carry on – past the railway bridge,
the first tomatoes in the greenhouse,
the cat Toto extended the length of the garage
wall under the window where you pause,
passing upstairs, to turn the brass
candlestick, glance across the orchard
and even then rub out a mark on
the glass deftly as if crossing a seven,
rounding an eight or a nought
and smiling quietly as if the day’s
total had come up even –
as if it would ever have been possible
to see you in private, as if, if anyone
had called – Alan fretful, a child unwell –
you wouldn’t have closed the figure
and closed the accounts, and gone
to meet them smiling as if what you
were about was of no importance.
vi
As if the diver at the high
point of the fish-tail could
angle that way forever, you watch
the whole world spun in the slow
embrace of her overarm as she
swings into the downdraft,
a slip of the air to the cool
blue interlace marking the spot
where she enters quietly as if
into your house in darkness with
a twist smooth as the key
turning home, the indrawn
hands with a pulse like breathing in
the lavender scent-and-textured
hall and small globes streaming
between the fingers on her fluid
double-jointed progress to
the viewing-glass. Crystalline
in an all-over halo she hangs
there in suspension
mouthing a sentence perfect
round and incomprehensible as
the weight of this radiance,
jewel-like, when she slowly
lifts herself to the ladder where
the water is open sesame
and shut again –
And here you are leaving, taking
your grandchild by the hand,
walking quietly back to the station.
vii
It is in the late move to the coast
the singularity of waking alone
impromptus to Paignton and Norwich
the day arched like a dome
overhead, the keening of seabirds
Sundays in church, polyphonic
in the hush before the voluntary.
The singularity of waking alone
in the long lift of the morning
walking the cliff-top level
with the thick caps of trees
and gull-backs breaking like waves
in the hush before the voluntary
sussuration of the sea between leaves
in the long lift of the morning
the flying white lace of a handkerchief
scent of home – lavender, polish, leather –
and gull-backs breaking like waves,
fringed barbs rising on each long-drawn breath.
Sussuration of the sea between leaves
the recapitulation, blue-black letters
written evenings in the lamplight
scent of home – lavender, polish, leather –
in the air between the fingers waving, at last,
fringed barbs rising on each long-drawn breath,
the open window in the hospital room.
Page(s) 39-45
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