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Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

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Rosie Crocus-Smith

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Raincolour Bird

Raincolour bird
   scatters yarrow sticks and searches
   for an earlier heaven.

Raincolour bird
   builds a nest high between firm and
   yielding lines.

Raincolour bird
   consults the yellow river map and sings
   a thunder of arousing.

   invites the presence of the ancestors,
   shatters the sacrificial spoon with juice
   of mulberry

   sits on horns, tips them with silver,
   taps out rhythms of advance and retreat.

   collects 32 pairs of eyes, seizes eyelight
   and changes water into mountain.

Raincolour bird
   re-arranges red pad-prints of leopard,
   unsealing fate of white bird.
 
   Takes a ribbon of silk, trails it
   towards the south.

   Embroiders and decorates the wind.

   Hangs chapters of deep meaning amongst
   wind chimes of temples.

   stamps in wax of 1000 candles and
   re-writes a universe.

   Directs together the flow of waters
   towards a smiling lake.

Raincolour bird
   drinks from inexhaustible wells
   of the abysmal and the joyous and
   proceeds to a place of voiceless praise.

Raincolour bird
   stands with one foot poised over
   the egg containing fledging Fu.

Raincolour bird
   lets fall knots of bamboo onto
   flames of burning peony.

Raincolour bird
   lays one feathersoft winglife
   and lifts out on the gentle

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