Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Moonset: I can feel the day closing in
my bones, as in the garden,
my once-brilliant mould,
the rheumatic clasp of fall
hunkers down like blight.

This is when the star-flowers come
into their own. Dripping down the vast trellis
built long ago with other things in mind,
the small but sparkling outbursts breathe fresh life
into autumnal dusk. A perfume fills the air
that I cannot put into words. It makes me eager again
to start the winter digging, to space the lilies
apart and prune the last of the silver hellebore.

As I see a star-flower petal once more,
as lips stretch to the night-time,
I catch a reflection of the spring
my interest in growing first took shape,
how I poured my heart into twelve seedlings
and the nocturne humus they dropped into,
pinpoints of light, how they withered out,
imploded before an ever-hungry earth
snatched them back. I took it upon myself
to sprinkle invisible stardust and the last rites
over their abracadabra vanishing,
shear each rotten tendril with a baco-foil cross.

In time, of course, things did grow
and many summers flashed by
without my being able to hold on
to a single one of them. If I was lucky,
I'd catch a star-flower early, trick it
into cut-glass positioned for best effect
beneath a corona of southerly light.

This year I've uprooted the whole garden,
setting star-flowers everywhere.
Already I sense the seeds, snug, have begun
to burst out of their careful shells
somewhere far, far below me.
But before drifts of unearthly snowdrops
freeze each embryo, before the time comes
when star-flowers spend their short lives submerged
in formaldehyde, I'll reach for snaggle-toothed secateurs,
hang each pulse of energy from the ceiling
stiff and stark and held in place by black ribbons
until the dry, dark air chokes them.
I'll ponder with delight the clunch of infinite layers,
the tightening, tightening of the screw,
the crisp aureoles so flat and fragile
they slip inside translucent bindings, where I
pour over them to my cold heart's content.