Eyeshine Part 3

RITES OF INTENSIFICATION

Did time on the Hegelian spirit, Freudian id, the totemic response to the unknowable where each phenomenon of nature became dream time itself, the electric crackle of G.o.d's Voice- movement from shadowy spectre to tight-lipped showmans.h.i.+p the learned empathy of tires careening around their throttled load.

28

JAGGED WIRE

A rail fence is more than that on a country dawn moving by lots over hill & stone; it barely pauses in the small of the field's lap, then is caught in grey positioning as light unfurls the sky.

All is a matter of perfect blistering - dauber wasps are seen to heave the moistened wood in chunks to mossy furrows, benign in their firm embrace upon alabaster trees.

There, crusts of heavy nails, marked like fortresses, droop in their rusty mail.

Mostly ants, in open canter, move in as upon an urn & lance far more than jagged wire the breath of stillest air.

29

EYEs.h.i.+NE

I remember the world like a picture.

The habitat of trees and sense impressions, the cover of leaves as fall spurred its way thru corridors of plasma forest & sa.r.s.en stone.

Most of all, I saw illuminated clearly the brash self poke of logic that came ma.s.sively when sunlight stirred, lilted its early head erasing the world thru sand crusts of colour.

The cabin floor, a cold dawn infinity, was a chilblain on frosty morning shadows - the old cupboards staring like flowers through a break in the leaves watched till the latches & hinges were worlds in frozen power, dark rust as thoughts meandering like age.

The stamped down clay, the well worn earthen crust that met the door on opening showed the erring calender all its interminable days that waited, like madmen, to remind one of oceanic time.

And, on wakening, the careless pa.s.sage of life across speckled windows saw a terrain of light - tiny works in agility, the forest looming bright as meridians off ladders bristling with homuncular forms.

Door of caring, the gentle trail left as a universe to announce the brittle thrust and restive eves of daytime shadow.

30, 31

SWEET WATER

The leaves lie hidden as spades about their home.

Brief movement of a kitten, then silence till the car's engine drones.

Close by, a pioneer cemetery sits near a secondary wood.

Queer is the effect of sun on a tinted roof; bluebells with poppies, cowslip and tiny brook back of fields redden and given to wheat.

A house is a machine processing the water of living a replenished cistern, birds paying a call, a minor animal brus.h.i.+ng past an ivy-railed fence.

32

PRIMAVERA

A poem is perishable and, like it, so much of life is spent in intervals - the jarring second regaining consciousness, a post-mortem flick of the lank equestrian eyelid that signals morning's first crepuscular move.

... a little salad consciousness about the tumescent room with the sentient purr of a cat; her musky oils a green verdure lapping primordial scent to engross a little readiness as the day progresses to its Oedipal stage and arrested development.

33

THE ENCOUNTER

Today surprised me like a red fox blurting out of an October thicket - empty, dry, the burst of its energy camouflaged much as that fox, solemn and cold, biding his time till he thought I pa.s.sed.

34

MAGPIE TONGUES

Trillium breath, an ounce of feathered growth unravels in the cloves of the silent forest.

The rain is heavy with the stamp of perfumed trees realizing slight restraint on bursting seed.

Cloaked in fragrance, tufts of mossy step kiss the opening earth, a bas.e.m.e.nt horizon presumes the darling test of flower across dale & rustling nook, then undresses moist greenery with sumptuous eye.

The last is hardest - cat crimson, a fire weed sunset lotion, the rain erased away; n.o.body special harangues the leaves but birds steal in quietly with tenderness clothed of verdure to pinch a leafy oasis about their forest haunt.

35

PLUMS & VINE

Plums and vine (as the Atlantic is green) intone the heavy church wall with errant sprigs, so Heaven sent they are big with earthly pa.s.sion racing for the sky.

Madonna Poverta in her midst with the pulpit clutching Light - so gnarled, like bush, that each crevice reeks with stone all stooped under such worldly avarice.

36

PERHAPS Perhaps the sky once was shadows, the moon lisped 'mongst April's song.

Now, those warm lips ease departing sorrow like pressed flowers emptied from hallowed ground.

37

APPROACHING THIRTY (Lauds and Matins)

Laconic tears or Botticelli's Venus holding the years like tresses in a wistful pose.

Tenebrous youth accosted by callow Time bleeds the heart with spring aloes.

No comfortable s.h.i.+bboleths to restrain the wriggling polyps in the skin or nestling hair.

Gerundive in movement, each particled whimper of the clock surrounds a cloistered second poised about the bearded target.