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Patricia Bishop

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Chancing Stars

 

Any clear night, the thumb-nail
details of housework done, I watch.
Stand in a quiet place, this garden say.

Somewhere so still I can hear
the drip of water on the lid
of a butt, the breath of bees.

I gape at stars too distant
for casual thought. So far
there is no beginning and nothing ends.

Perhaps I’ll glimpse a vagrant ghost
through the mist on the banks of the
Thames that runs sinister and close.


The moon passes ravelling,
unravelling, its own silver thread.
There is no sadness, nothing substantial.

That daisy folding its petals against
the dark is more real than my hand
or your remembered face. The night’s

clear and warm, the neighbours settled
in their downy beds. Slighter than
the wisp of a dandelion clock, thought

alters. Loss inevitably fades but maybe
something – a voice tangled in this web
or a scent caught in the night air.

 

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