Sources
And it is still again -
the winds are off: eddying
and parleying with other
places. Groups of little flies
bob up and down. A car
passes silently along the far
road. Another camper van goes
by: I cannot blame them:
these people who come seeking
the beauty of this place. I see
it, yawning, when I open my
curtains in the sleepy morning
and beauty stares me in the face.
I split my time, these
past few days, between gallery
and studio: one watching the
green waves, one handling
pliant fabric mounds, one
drinks-in at the eyes, the
other fashions to keep me warm.
In the wider world, the wars go on:
in politics, in parliament houses,
injustice is, crime figures up,
foreign gaols are cruel, animals
give up with frightened eyes,
jets criss-cross the heavens and
veil the sun, plastic gorges
all our waters, and everywhere
nature, birds, fish, trees
are shrinking to our disease.
Human ills are timeless: what
we are flows through years
like an endless river, ever
issuing from some secret source.
Here, now, I feel the limits
of my body, my blood throbs
my head: I am
what I am, in this time, in
this place - I have done
all that had to be done.
I have said all that had
to be said. What remains
are the days and their storms,
my hands and their arms,
my mind with all its world
in the garden on my knees.
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