Diurnal
1
Reflections, like marquetry inlaid in a table,
Staying round all afternoon —
The drier's spindle mourns.
Under the sky goes a desk.
Like a pair of carved wings it travels alone
And its wake fills with a buzz
Of our conversations. The wings
Dive underground now. Upright and full
I can topple back into myself.
Wings carefully folded, I'll sleep.
Next day their wash ruffles the tops
Of the summer trees, again, I'm so thankful
To all those people out there
Who are striving so hard to entertain me.
2
If only I could, forgetting myself, be simply
This body cutting up meat,
The knife easing its way, searching out
The invisible junction between here and not
But the sky outside replaces my writing
And I am alone with the mark of myself.
It is something between a fingerprint and a sign
As I climb these unresisting stairs
To look from an upstairs window,
My ageing a process of sunlight, while over
These cluttered gardens a hammerhead of cloud
Gathers itself, day's wave
Looming up at me, and a dog
Rubs its voice on the powerful surface of air.
3
Deep sleep and one brief chapter of dream
I remembered. A household to wake to.
In the afternoon dreaming again.
Being roused with a start at the existential moment
To meditate on panic briefly
I shrink like a wave drawing back, I was
Learning the great routine. You want more
Than you can, which leaves the residue—you—
A diminishing circuit. On the periphery
Subtle bits of it start to fade.
Already I'm borrowed by children.
The blood moves round in its channels.
I wait inside encircled
By redoubts of dumb air and signalling dreams.
Page(s) 58-59
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