Night in a Tuscan Garden
I
An oil lamp burns in a window,
A blue, flickering light, warmth
Reaches the cool of new night.
A crescent version of the moon,
Slants towards length, day to night,
Cradles an earth, a plane of rest.
Scent of lotus blossom catches the air,
Climbs slowly into summer night rooms,
Inducing sleep, a tide ebb to oblivion,
Creeps up the cove of drugged dreams,
Waves lapping over stone a current’s
driftage, licks smooth a portrait of rocks.
II
Twilight glimpses of moving shadows,
Enigmatic, stray-eyed, dark spirited,
Black, noiseless, slimy creatures,
Patrol the garden of pistachio trees.
Secure spiked glass privacy,
Surrounds a wall of shuddering souls.
Painted in pictures, of limed, red brick,
And a wood rotted door, half hidden,
Amongst the rampant swathe of foliage,
Rusty on hinges, tighter than a lock,
Wood, heavy as lead, and by weight
And weld, never opens from either side.
III
Orange light plays in the lemon groves,
Stealing bread from the dying leaves
That fall, fur-lined, to the grassy floor.
Worms abundant; their name is legion,
Turn, writhe, swallow, twist, burrow,
In the caves of earth, seeking damp tunnels.
Leads to mouldering, churning leaf flesh
Turns to a tubular mass, moves in the drift,
And rests in the sand, under rocks and listens,
Listens to the stretching, feeling for the prey,
Holding on to a screaming spirit, emerging from
A body with a heritage of silence.
IV
Variations on a theme of light,
Induce patterns, abstract art forms, through
Every sway that plays in the moonlight.
Melancholy dreams lay silent melodies,
Raindrops sucked from clouds, catch flies,
And render harmless, the sting of the wind,
Kiss; preen the feathers of a nightjar,
Plentiful in the kingdom of stillness. In the garden,
no blending, tones are clear, breeze whispers,
Barn owl screeches, woodwind and brass,
Accompanies, silent, metronomic breathing,
Interdependent and emergent through growth.
V
To the first rain, splattering ice drops,
Speckling the dusty dirt tracks, winding along
A pathway, lost sight in the turnings, bends that
Follow the trees, insects bathing on autumn leaves,
Birds hiding in foliage, beyond the green door,
Away from the eyes, iris of the darkness.
Eyes passing through cloud, over the hill,
Random thoughts pressing into misty minds,
Beckons to a path, guided by one hand,
Reaching forwards for the field beyond, to
The brook beyond, the stream, the river and
Into the sea, the ocean and incredible depth.
Page(s) 26-27
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