John Mallet
Island murmurs
I
Water? Quite colourless:
Blue, grey,
Only from reflection,
Drink or drown.
A crystal’s clarity forms out of cloud:
Euclid from kettle’s breath.
Drip, drop
Unclenches avalanche, fills
Isaak Walton’s cressy pools
Or the sacred Ganges.
Listen:
far off I hear
The murmur and roll and chafe
Of seas and seasons salt with the tears of things.
II
Water, muddied with life,
Streams through our veins.
With what rouge blazonry this blood spills out,
The carefree colour of danger!
A motorway journey’s end,
What John Keats spat.
III
There’s wit in brevity.
Though the joke’s on us,
Let us enjoy it,
Plucking our sweet, short day,
Or that is what I told her.
Perhaps I lied.
IV
Out of a corner of my mind I catch
A vision’s shadow.
Wraith of other seasons
Shall you come in,
Clothed in the glory of your nakedness?
Night falls, but sleep’s unthinkable,
Yearning for dreams.
How long can longing last?
Or how embody here
Intangibles we fondled another year:
You, me and ours?
Turn the white sheet and wait.
Dawn-drowse at last: hope
Tangled with dread.
You shiver as you slide into my head.
V
No man’s an island?
This Ionian Isle
Originates in fault,
Is hard, is soft
In layered limestone bluffs.
Yet islands are defined by sea, not stone;
And who can grasp the cool,
Indifferent water
That slips between our fingers,
While we swim.
Paxos, 1991
Page(s) 49-50
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