Where will the tide of ancient oaks spend itself?
Swell upon swell it runs towards the horizon,
the rasp of a thousand cicadas a second tide
in the almost night air. Three stars are out.
In the middle distance, the lights of a village
hover between waking and sleep;
beyond, in that glow between earth and sky
faint inklings of Siena or Florence.
the rimless pool
last vessel of spirituality
mildly chlorinated transcendence
as if you could simply
swim out there
Because
of a Persian blue pond
leaked out of time;
because
of leaves turning and
snow on the world;
because
of the infrasonic boom
of the planet’s lonely flight;
because
of the missing entries
in the log of the Marie Celeste;
because
of these unfolding stalks of light
(sea anemones of the soul);
because, perhaps,
out of confusion, as the way is,
and the chaos –
A company of rooks have commandeered
my tree tops, cawing their raucous orders
to the foul-mouthed platoon of carrion crows
billeted lower down.
Their croaking sorties darken my window –
but shush: from his high lookout a blackbird
raises his voice, rehearsing spring rebellion.
I clear my throat.
I sit quite still
on the weathered wooden bench
as the caramel coloured chicks
stalk closer.
The sharp tugging of beaks
at tender shoots of grass,
the homely hencoop smell –
and I’m adrift
in summer, giddy, cut loose
from my moorings,
lost but wrapped safe
in solicitous clucking –
The chicks nestle near
in the last rays of the low sun;
the hen, wary, patrols –
and I hold Grandpa’s hand
as we go and lift warm eggs
from beds of straw.
Not today, though,
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
not today he isn’t.
The entrance to the room
is barricaded with plywood permitting
only a partial glimpse
of the General: upstanding, unfazed
by the turbulent ice floes,
unwavering gaze fixed on, well,
plywood. The impeccable turnout,
in democratically dun-coloured mantle
(lined with scarlet),
thrown in dramatic folds
over shoulders bearing the weight
of a nascent nation –
all for nothing today. He shall not
reach the far shore, shall not
trounce the Hessian mercenaries;
and this great nation shall never,
now, be birthed – and not
just this room, no, the entire museum,
Fifth Avenue, all of Manhattan
declared closed
for the duration; New York roped off,
the Empire State Building un-built,
stone by stone, steel girders
dismantled, the Brooklyn Bridge
melted down and Brooklyn cut loose
to drift out to sea.
By and by the prairie schooners
will return from the West (California
now only a word
whispered in feverish dreams
and no more), and from a non-place
not called Washington,
in a porticoed, pillared white house
that never was, a last tweet proclaims
the fading usurper’s futile fury –
then silence. Peace.
