Caroline Natzler
Easy?
You walk solid through the soft days of spring
– who cares for noisome birdsong kisses
the longing in the scent of blossom
air caressing and gone,
or the lips and hands of the young
devoutly twining in the garlanded park?
Those deep gazes and desperate joinings
that used to mean so much,
the straining to mate
all in the past, you think, leaving you free
to walk whole now through the soft spring days
released
from the urge to find completion
in another partial being
wriggling your needs onto another’s edges
hoping to find the answer in someone else’s search
released from always reaching
for love
you walk single now through the soft days of spring
touch the wood on a park bench, feel its warmth
brush your feet through the upturned faces of daisies
multiple as other people’s children.
– who cares for noisome birdsong kisses
the longing in the scent of blossom
air caressing and gone,
or the lips and hands of the young
devoutly twining in the garlanded park?
Those deep gazes and desperate joinings
that used to mean so much,
the straining to mate
all in the past, you think, leaving you free
to walk whole now through the soft spring days
released
from the urge to find completion
in another partial being
wriggling your needs onto another’s edges
hoping to find the answer in someone else’s search
released from always reaching
for love
you walk single now through the soft days of spring
touch the wood on a park bench, feel its warmth
brush your feet through the upturned faces of daisies
multiple as other people’s children.
Caroline Natzler teaches creative writing in London. Her collection, Design Fault, was published by Flambard in 2001.
Page(s) 33
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The