Pat Borthwick
Patrick Moore blows a fuse
All day, way off the Beaufort scale,
the winds have taken vent.
The whole Earth rocks in their wake.
Weathercocks, windsocks, cones
skylark miles above our chimneys.
This island seems swept out to sea,
a Roaring Forties
wrenching out whole forests
turning gutters into rivers,
the rivers into rush hour waves.
And us, blown or bobbing somewhere.
Of course, the lines are down.
In his domed and rattly house
Patrick Moore, with a wobbling candle,
searches through his cupboards.
He finds boxes of charged particles,
old tins of quarks. His drawers are filled
with faded nebulae and quasars, dead stars.
On the bowed steel shelves, white dwarves.
Everywhere there’s dust. Cosmic dust.
It claims the position of things.
Look, under Galileo’s bust and these books,
a layer of varnished newness, then under here,
the circular base shape of this astrolabe.
He shuffles in his Glo-Moon slippers.
Nowadays spiral stairs are difficult to climb
although climb he must, to press his eye
against the eyepiece and see neon blues
arc between the fingertips of galaxies,
see winds at 1000 m.p.h. scour planets,
to scan for a future comet with his name.
But first to find a screwdriver and fuse,
to mend the plug, its copper wires
frayed and fanned like solar flares.
He’s eager for more light years
that might illuminate a vanishing today.
the winds have taken vent.
The whole Earth rocks in their wake.
Weathercocks, windsocks, cones
skylark miles above our chimneys.
This island seems swept out to sea,
a Roaring Forties
wrenching out whole forests
turning gutters into rivers,
the rivers into rush hour waves.
And us, blown or bobbing somewhere.
Of course, the lines are down.
In his domed and rattly house
Patrick Moore, with a wobbling candle,
searches through his cupboards.
He finds boxes of charged particles,
old tins of quarks. His drawers are filled
with faded nebulae and quasars, dead stars.
On the bowed steel shelves, white dwarves.
Everywhere there’s dust. Cosmic dust.
It claims the position of things.
Look, under Galileo’s bust and these books,
a layer of varnished newness, then under here,
the circular base shape of this astrolabe.
He shuffles in his Glo-Moon slippers.
Nowadays spiral stairs are difficult to climb
although climb he must, to press his eye
against the eyepiece and see neon blues
arc between the fingertips of galaxies,
see winds at 1000 m.p.h. scour planets,
to scan for a future comet with his name.
But first to find a screwdriver and fuse,
to mend the plug, its copper wires
frayed and fanned like solar flares.
He’s eager for more light years
that might illuminate a vanishing today.
Page(s) 8
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