Daniel Gustafsson
A View
The roof-tops, red-brick and asphalt
In a dawn the colour of brass;
Between the last drinks (the hours
Of outpourings and broken glass)
And the first passing of beggar
Or postman, a fierce gale now greets
The breaking day. One lone figure
Braves this fray, plods the floodlit streets:
A pigeon, poor thing, perched on kerb
Like weathercock on a belfry,
A pawn and plaything of the wind;
And how it taunts him, how it treats
The frizzled feathers of his wings
Like paper, like the torn pages
Of a broad-sheet; he reels in it,
He flutters, flops and keels in it,
Wrestles like Jacob with brightness –
Until, in one breath, it lifts him
- With such free and sudden lightness
These mortal eyes can’t see the strings.
Page(s) 21
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