Water and Wood
We’d always regret it, you said firmly.
It was a day when the sea was quiet
for swimming, with the gentlest undulations
of light: there was water and the safety
of water and its predictable demeanour
on those roads of light. The bulk of sea
clasped spread limbs, my alert weight supported
like an embryo by that buoyant
warmth, a flood of sunlight
wrapping me, an intensity of air in spate.
We’d always regret it, I said, if we didn’t.
It was a day when the water ran to the shore in whorls
and knots, like spiral galaxies, light
slicing the waves. We wanted to say good luck
to fishermen in the risks of water, but that would be
bad luck - they’d swear, and Piero
(who treats his ancient cat, Annibale,
with a tenderness he denies his wife) would swear
louder than the rest. We understood: no whisper of doom
must confound the efficacies of water and fortune.
We’d always regret it, you said, if we didn’t buy it.
It was that day when we scratched words
for each other in the sand, like survivors of a more
tentative time. How long had we been married, a woman asked,
and wished us another twenty years, as the small waves
sent calm lines of light towards us, alternations
of dark and light water like a tree’s
heart wood. We analysed rhythms of waves
and their sibilance, and looked for disclosures
in the colours of water.
And so we did buy it, that board of fine
polished olive wood (for bread, for biscuits,
or for nothing at all). The wood
feels smooth and silky, but has the grain
and substance of growth: we hold its lines
of life, the flow of words and water,
the swirl of water and seasons. We eat
our bread, and with careful fingers
pick crumbs as if they were grains of gold
from the olive wood, remembering water and light.
It was a day when the sea was quiet
for swimming, with the gentlest undulations
of light: there was water and the safety
of water and its predictable demeanour
on those roads of light. The bulk of sea
clasped spread limbs, my alert weight supported
like an embryo by that buoyant
warmth, a flood of sunlight
wrapping me, an intensity of air in spate.
We’d always regret it, I said, if we didn’t.
It was a day when the water ran to the shore in whorls
and knots, like spiral galaxies, light
slicing the waves. We wanted to say good luck
to fishermen in the risks of water, but that would be
bad luck - they’d swear, and Piero
(who treats his ancient cat, Annibale,
with a tenderness he denies his wife) would swear
louder than the rest. We understood: no whisper of doom
must confound the efficacies of water and fortune.
We’d always regret it, you said, if we didn’t buy it.
It was that day when we scratched words
for each other in the sand, like survivors of a more
tentative time. How long had we been married, a woman asked,
and wished us another twenty years, as the small waves
sent calm lines of light towards us, alternations
of dark and light water like a tree’s
heart wood. We analysed rhythms of waves
and their sibilance, and looked for disclosures
in the colours of water.
And so we did buy it, that board of fine
polished olive wood (for bread, for biscuits,
or for nothing at all). The wood
feels smooth and silky, but has the grain
and substance of growth: we hold its lines
of life, the flow of words and water,
the swirl of water and seasons. We eat
our bread, and with careful fingers
pick crumbs as if they were grains of gold
from the olive wood, remembering water and light.
Page(s) 49
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