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Vuyelwa Carlin

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Magdalena At Six Months

1.       Mid-throw, on top of the air arch, you hover,
          hang collected, like Nijinsky,
          doing the next thing. You know more –

          have an inkling of this matter, that:
          you can search  – for a while –

          but stuff sits lightly, still –
          rolls, after a bit, quietly into the dark.


2.       You might laugh, now, at a blown away hat.

          And the shadow of your futures,
          that great hanging parkland, with its groves,
          all those paths – ghosts yet –

          has passed off-centre
          - or we have turned away charmed, charm-distracted..


3.       Songs sung before birth
          no longer send you into quietness:
          they have dropped down, down into the dark –

          blind slivers on the ocean floor –
          pressed wisps, but breathing, pressing on.


4.       You are built, build –
          what is made up, and what copied down?
          what is caught, what alights?

          You have known, already, dreams; some bad;
          your new sorrows stir old constructs –
          arc into future-shock:

          you are becoming loose in Time, like all of us –
          clinging, swinging on its vast lianas!


5.       A daffodil, a dandelion – something sturdy,
          no nonsense; you have your reasons! –

          and you air-walk,
          stay, air held  -  as far as you know –
          a catcher, a fisher, a drawing denseness, fierce almost.

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