Searching for these islands
In the steely mists of the northern sea?
Or bootlegged for Elizabeth
With Drake and Ralegh,
Plunging through combers like a saw through wood?
That is what I think
When I stand in the Marches
Watching the west wind blot the grass,
The dog rose shiver red and white in the sun.
But at home
On sunny, windswept afternoons
I put aside grandeur,
Alone in my room.
I sit at the window
And watch just a simmering
Corner of garden –
The creosoted fence like black canvas,
Grainy and pulled very taut;
A passion flower climbing
With semaphore arms,
Pouring itself on a trellis;
And the ceaseless, piled activity
Of turbulent sky above.
Dove-bruises of cloud
Rush across the earth –
It is English weather –
Blue and gold enamelling
Giving way to blustering cloud,
As quickly dispelled
By a sudden shaft of sun.
The wind sings at my door,
And a shred of spider-web
Shakes on the pane like a trampoline.
It is an agitated honey-jar
This corner,
Become as a little Eden.
The fence has a sheen like a fly’s back;
At its foot are the gathered
Remnants of gardening –
Dusty old canes,
Flowerpots,
Remains of cacti crawled on by ants,
And an old mat
Gone anaemic in weather.
The garden swells with good things
Like a smile;
Vegetables fall over themselves,
All fingers and thumbs of growth;
And the passion flower flushes
Along its stem,
Its darkly-smiling leaves
Pursed like empty pea-pods.
It will be the highlight of summer
When it lusciously flowers:
Already its feelers
Are dizzily hugging themselves
With narcissistic glee.
And again the wind is in the corner,
Stirring things up like a stick in paint.
I am wholly at peace with myself,
Reconciled with the hung flesh
On my bones.
Warmth clambers through the window
Dressed in the primary colours of summer.
Brutus! Brutus!
Your land is fruitful as a bursting fig;
Call down protection on this demi-paradise!
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©
July 1979/Revised April 2012