скачать книгу бесплатно
A meeting of opposites.
How easily forgotten then
What was first felt—
An anchor lifted from the blood,
Sensations intense as any lunatic’s,
Ruined by unaccustomary events,
Let drop because of weariness.
The Ambush (#ulink_ec8f6811-339e-530a-9fad-2b31b5b6f59f)
When the face you swore never to forget
Can no longer be remembered,
When a list of regrets is torn up and thrown away
Then the hurt fades,
And you think you’ve grown strong.
You sit in bars and boast to yourself,
‘Never again will I be vulnerable.
It was an aberration to be so open,
A folly, never to be repeated.’
How absurd and fragile such promises.
Hidden from you, crouched
Among the longings you have suppressed
And the desires you imagine tamed,
A sweet pain waits in ambush.
And there will come a day when in a field
Heaven’s mouth gapes open,
And on a web the shadow
Of a marigold will smoulder.
Then without warning,
Without a shred of comfort,
Emotions you thought had been put aside
Will flare up within you and bleed you of reason.
The routines which comforted you,
And the habits in which you sought refuge
Will bend like sunlight under water,
And go astray.
Once again your body will become a banquet,
Falling heavenwards.
You will loll in spring’s sweet avalanche
Without the burden of memory,
And once again
Monstrous love will swallow you.
A Blade of Grass (#ulink_f6fcbc1f-4aea-5d81-829f-976589a861e9)
You ask for a poem.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good enough.
You ask for a poem.
I say this blade of grass will do.
It has dressed itself in frost,
It is more immediate
Than any image of my making.
You say it is not a poem,
It is a blade of grass and grass
Is not quite good enough.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You are indignant.
You say it is too easy to offer grass.
It is absurd.
Anyone can offer a blade of grass.
You ask for a poem.
And so I write you a tragedy about
How a blade of grass
Becomes more and more difficult to offer,
And about how as you grow older
A blade of grass
Becomes more difficult to accept.
What I Need for the Present (#ulink_fa302c3c-d073-5903-bd7f-4da153a60e76)
Thanks, but please take back
the trinket box, the picture
made from butterfly wings and
the crystal glass.
Please take back the books,
the postcards, the beeswax candles,
the potted plant, the Hockney print
and the expensive pen.
Ungracious of me to say it, but
so many gifts that are given
are given in lieu of what
cannot be given.
Ungracious to say it, but
wherever I move in this room
it’s not these gifts I see, but your absense
that accumulates on them like dust.
Forgive me. Your intentions
were so very kind, but here’s
your box of fetters back. It’s not
what I need for the present.
Through All Your Abstract Reasoning (#ulink_40f82f2a-5a27-5014-9e5d-b26764fc70b0)
Coming back one evening through deserted fields
when the birds, drowsy with sleep,
have all but forgotten you,
you stop, and for one moment jerk alive.
Something has passed through you
that alters and enlightens: O
realization of what has gone and was real.
A bleak and uncoded message whispers
down all the nerves:
‘You cared for her! For love you cared!’
Something has passed a finger through
all your abstract reasoning.
From love you sheltered outside of love but still
the human bit leaked in,
