Small Things Read online

  earthy essence!

  To feel your hair

  like cool grass

  pressed against

  my longing cheek,

  to draw from you

  the blood-rich

  vapour of your

  living being,

  palpitating

  and as full

  of nectar

  as a flower.

  How miraculous

  to roam the fragrant

  landscape that

  your sweet

  flesh forms,

  with its dips

  and its hollows;

  a place of wine

  and honey.

  More than words,

  more than whispered

  promises,

  the smell of you

  reveals the shape

  of your

  warm heart.

  SMALL THINGS

  Give me

  a conversation which ignites.

  Let words needle their way

  into meanings, into memories.

  Give me

  a companion

  who will throw back boulders

  when I cast my pebbles at her.

  Let a whole afternoon

  drift by in laughter.

  Give me

  white wine and crusty bread.

  Let the seats be comfortable,

  with a view of trees

  and clouds that are just so.

  And when the sun goes down

  I’d like a bed

  with a lover in it,

  warmed by candlelight

  and soft embraces.

  Give me

  a sense that the world is not too cruel,

  and that tomorrows still stretch out

  like stepping stones

  towards some kindly place.

  And let that be a day like all the rest.

  THE BELLS OF WENGEN

  When I heard the church bell ringing,

  all the stillness of the valley

  with its vast surround of ice and rock

  was, in an instant, deepened.

  I gazed at distant peaks,

  snow-capped and sunlit

  in their cold remoteness,

  and felt the roundness of the bells,

  their antique metal calling out

  a proclamation of man’s long presence

  in that place.

  Then up the slopes

  with the dark procession of the pines,

  and into far off crags and cliffs

  where waters rush and black crows

  circle in the rising air,

  all the bells of Wengen reached and rang

  till I, with my fragile human heart,

  was lifted higher than a bird.

  THE DOG’S DAY OUT

  He ran across the pebbles,

  bouncing soft as light,

  and headed for the great grey sea,

  not knowing what it was,

  except that it was there

  and must be scolded.

  Knee-deep in waves

  the fight began.

  He bit and tore,

  determined as he always was

  to bring the world to heel

  and fear his name.

  But the water,

  unconcerned by such stern discipline,

  had picked him up

  as lightly as a leaf

  and rolled him as a friendly brother would

  and dumped him on the sand.

  Oh, hallelujah, that such a force

  as this would be his friend!

  He came at speed to tell us,

  his legs like wings,

  his body held aloft

  my joy and madness.

  Then back he went.

  We watched this struggle

  of the Titans,

  laughing at his ecstasy

  as though the rapture

  in his tiny heart was ours.

  Love and war;

  the best of each

  was wrapped up in a moment

  on that day.

  Nobody lost

  And nobody won.

  Just a dog

  and the beach

  and the sea.

  CANAL

  It was the time for rest.

  We’d stopped and moored our boat

  beside broad meadows steeped in mist

  knee-deep and opalescent as a moon.

  Cows stood like islands as they chewed,

  whilst all about them, darkening the trees,

  the rusty voices of the rooks.

  We worked at ropes and knots,

  smelling earth and dull dark water

  as we made ourselves secure.

  We lit a lamp for comfort.

  Look, you said.

  The sun, an orange ember,

  loitered still along the strange horizon,

  its shape less certain as it sank,

  its heat now quenched

  by soft September night.

  Geese broke the sky with sawing wings;

  a spell was cast.

  We watched the sun depart

  like those who see a friend off on a train.

  Then, inside the cabin

  with its fug of fuel and wine,

  we played at cards

  and ate our food

  knowing that around us,

  beyond the tiny capsule

  of our laughter and our warmth,

  the great night gathered.

  THE HAUNTED LAND

  Sometimes at the very point of sleep

  I stand once more in silence

  in the haunted land,

  the one where as a child

  I gazed out at the borders

  marked by elms,

  and listened to the sound of trains.

  No bird swoops there,

  no sound of voices,

  only the clouds,

  the lofty marble clouds

  that tower in the sea-deep blue.

  And then the trains.

  I thought when I was young

  that I would be a different person

  when I’d grown,

  that trains would take me

  to another place

  and all would change.

  It was not so.

  A lonely figure

  makes its way perpetually through fields,

  a dark shape

  in the shimmer of the wheat.

  It never stops and yet

  it grows no nearer as it moves.

  And so life goes:

  A cycle, like a memory of summer

  long ago.

  FOR DAD

  When I heard that you were dead,

  when they told me that you had died

  and that everything you ever were

  had ended and would never be again,

  I stood in that stark corridor,

  the nurse’s face before me, strict and kind,

  and waited till her words

  at last made sense.

  She took me through

  and showed me where you lay.

  For days you’d battled,

  struggled like a man submerged,

  your body, frail as frost,

  exhausted by the long

  unending haul of every breath

  until the last.

  I took your hand –

  something you would not allow in life –

  remembering how in childhood

  I had revelled in the touch

  of yours, so large and gentle,

  as you’d washed me.

  And on your face,

  now drained of life,

  there lingered still

  a presence

  formed by lines and scars,

  marking out the map

  of your great journey.

  More than anything

  you’d survived.

  Survived when others fell,

  survi
ved the strange uncertainties of living,

  survived starvation, fear and failure,

  survived the horror of what men do.

  You’d survived when life had lost its savour,

  and went on –

  kindness still a flame inside you –

  winning victories every day

  until the last.

  QUIETLY ONE SUNDAY

  No word was said,

  no comment raised

  to focus in the mind

  those few quiet moments.

  But the clouds,

  relenting that December day,

  allowed the sun

  a soft brief outing

  ten breaths long

  in which to light the birch tree

  on its sodden patch.

  And for those heartbeats,

  luminescent in the morning gloom,

  the white bark blazed

  and showed itself

  a life of substance.

  I too

  for those long seconds

  stood as motionless as wood

  whilst the rays

  unwound the hardness

  in us both and,

  stilled by winter,

  we waited, glowing

  in that interlude of grace,

  two golden beings,

  dressed in all the bells

  of Sunday.

  EGGS

  Each day,

  without thinking,

  I observe

  the familiar shape

  of an egg.

  In my kitchen

  they sit

  in their rows

  and groups

  like clusters

  of babies,

  like bald heads,

  sculptures,

  miraculous pebbles

  textured like flesh

  which has turned

  into stone.

  They are domed

  brittle boxes

  of glutinous gold,

  sulphurous,

  dynamic,

  perfect,

  whole.

  I imagine one

  breaking

  on the side

  of a bowl,

  its contents

  sliding

  into the flour

  like a soft

  yellow sun;

  or perhaps

  as an omelette

  fragrant

  with nutmeg.

  I can picture them

  whipped into

  stiff white snow,

  or as sputtering islands

  in a lake of oil.

  A hundred ways

  exist

  to eat eggs,

  but with each

  we destroy

  an immaculate beauty;

  beyond the flavour

  and bounty

  of eggs

  lies the shadow

  of wings,

  lies shattered mineral,

  an emptied cave,

  a looted home,

  for in each shell

  resides

  the soul of a bird.

  UNMASKED

  How cavernous the night!

  A place of vast dimension,

  boundless as a deep black sea

  that has no shores.

  No mind can capture its dark splendour,

  for we – the blind, the infinitesimal,

  this mustard seed in all

  the oceans of the world,

  this maggot shouting at the moon –

  can never break the tug of flesh,

  this blink of life which bars us from eternity.

  Beneath the ancient light of stars

  we are unmasked: miraculous

  but delicate as dew, we are a flawed jewel

  formed from dust and fortune

  under the bright constellations.

  FOR MIKE

  It started cold that day.

  I drove to work with chilled skin

  and an irritation that yet again

  the builders’ van was in the way.

  I tutted and complained

  about the late arrival of the mail.

  The milk was off.

  I tore my finger on a nail

  and bled profusely

  for a whole half minute.

  The usual lunch.

  I did some repetitious tasks

  and went home early

  under lowering skies.

  The cat had caught a squirrel

  which the dog now shared.

  I drank two glasses of white wine

  and listened to the radio news,

  and grumbled at the many

  inconsistencies of our own kind.

  Later, at the theatre, a comedian

  told a hundred jokes,

  though truth be told

  I was not really in the mood.

  These things make up the act of living,

  the ordinary marvellous gifts

  that I enjoyed but gave no thanks for

  on the very day you died.

  LA MER

  From the resonant bellies

  of violins

  the luminous sound

  of the sea

  has reached me.

  Here

  in the shell sky

  all the oceans converge,

  even the ships

  which ply their way

  like actors

  from some other play;

  all are consumed

  in the glittering light,

  the immeasurable pulse,

  the same liquid tide

  in which salt and song

  are constantly sighing.

  On and on

  it rises and falls;

  lifetimes crash and break

  on its shorelines.

  I do not ask

  how this ocean exists;

  I only know

  that I carry it in me,

  moved by the odour

  of vast waters,

  the spirit of fish,

  the shimmer of sound,

  a few bright notes

  like a cupped hand

  brimmed

  by a whole blue day.

  THE MIRACLE

  I did not see it

  in the apse.

  No miracle

  was witnessed

  in the nave that day,

  not there

  amongst the saints

  and sacraments,

  the vaulted heights,

  nor even in the crypt below,

  but deeper still,

  beneath the tombs,

  inside a hollow

  hewn from rock,

  a midnight place

  of cold and stillness

  neat as death.

  Words long forgotten

  steeped the stone.

  Yet through this silent vault

  a rill had worn

  its stubborn path.

  A tiny stream

  four fingers wide

  had wandered in

  from sunlit fields

  and swelled

  this sepulchre of night

  with music.

  A single lamp

  no brighter than a candle

  lit the exit

  of this liquid voice,

  and there

  where light

  and water met,

  a world had sprung:

  moss and ferns

  of minute scale

  had taken hold,

  a planted flag,

  a declaration of intent,

  emerald, moist,

  self-reproducing.

  Here was the marvel:

  the courage of each cell of life

  outweighing in triumph

  all the thoughts and theories

  of mankind.

  AT THE END

  If I should never see you again,

  if you and I were never again to speak,


  inside me, all the words we'd ever shared

  would gather like the weight of leaves,

  like old coins in a silent fountain,

  a lifetime of collected shells.

  The greyness of cold seas

  would wash the void which you’d once filled,

  and echoes sharp as keening gulls

  would carve away that tender place.

  You and I whose hands still touch

  can offer kisses where all words must fail,

  but at the end when flesh must part,

  the empty waste would fill with words -

  those words which time has sculpted into shapes

  familiar as a mirrored face.

  A fortune stored in words once shared

  would soothe the aching of a hollow heart,

  a love which breath bequeathed to silence

  and to sound.

  WINE

  Through what frail fruit

  the earth gives up

  its golden dreams!

  First in the vines,

  to sleeping seed

  the soil calls out

  its mineral song.

  It whispers

  in the basking leaves,

  and works its way

  mysteriously

  through firm sweet flesh

  as green as ponds.

  How bold and tender

  is this fusion

  of the grape and man!

  It settles

  in the sinews

  like a calming hand,

  a distillation

  of the planet’s wealth:

  sunshine, water,

  soil and growth;

  awakening

  in tongues and nerves

  those bright

  internal skies

  we long to know.

  TOOLS

  What would I be

  if I lacked tools?

  A creature stranded

  in its thoughts,

  a man abandoned

  in the abstract

  like a leaf in wind,

  whose ideas would

  remain as such,

  or fall to dust.

  They are my friends,

  these tools, living

  in their boxes

  and their cabinets

  and drawers, like

  dormant beings

  who await the call.

  Tools for wood

  and tools for metal,

  tools for clay or plaster,

  tools to draw

  or set down words.

  They magnify me,

  make me larger

  than a thought allows,

  these things which

  in themselves

  are not an end.

  They give me breath,

  they lend me wings.

  TO THE TREE

  Your stillness at the heart of things

  had always moved me,

  not your leaves, which fluttered

  or were tossed by breeze,

  but you, old sentinel,

  who stood your ground,

  deep-rooted and determined

  through the march of years.

  You had outlasted those

  who’d placed you there,

  endured their acts of war

  and constant change,

  seen sin and virtue