Poems
Rewind the Film
(Voices from Another Room)
I wish I had a film of you.
I’d love to see you move again,
to see the gestures that I knew
when you were here, as we were then,
and know I’d not forgotten what
was true of you and what was not.
I’d watch as if through window panes
and you still moved beyond the glass,
knowing memory remains
although the years and lives must pass,
and from your movements could infer
the unity of what you were.
Perhaps I’d hear your voice again,
if no more than a sound or two,
and know it as I knew it when
we rested on the grass, and you
would close your eyes and feel the sun
as if the end had not begun.
I’d know that what I heard and saw
was not the shadow of my mind
and know you almost as before,
when in the outward form I’d find
the creature that I couldn’t see
or hear, and all you were to me,
as if I felt a wind that blew
across that insubstantial day
or sun illuminating you
because I’ve felt the sunlight play
on flesh, and though the hours pass
had reached the world beyond the glass.
I’d love to see you move again,
to see the gestures that I knew
when you were here, as we were then,
and know I’d not forgotten what
was true of you and what was not.
I’d watch as if through window panes
and you still moved beyond the glass,
knowing memory remains
although the years and lives must pass,
and from your movements could infer
the unity of what you were.
Perhaps I’d hear your voice again,
if no more than a sound or two,
and know it as I knew it when
we rested on the grass, and you
would close your eyes and feel the sun
as if the end had not begun.
I’d know that what I heard and saw
was not the shadow of my mind
and know you almost as before,
when in the outward form I’d find
the creature that I couldn’t see
or hear, and all you were to me,
as if I felt a wind that blew
across that insubstantial day
or sun illuminating you
because I’ve felt the sunlight play
on flesh, and though the hours pass
had reached the world beyond the glass.
Landscape
(Voices from Another Room)
Find me a place where stories have grown old,
and wound about the lands where they were told
in other times so that they seem as one
with all that lies beneath a foreign sun,
like vines that grow on warm and weathered stones
or veins that stretch about their living bones.
Or lie to me and say this is that place
and in that story you and I will trace
the past that never was, so that this seems
a land where tales have been told (and dreams
have passed) without a break from distant ages,
written to survive their yellowed pages.
But when this is a place where stories dwell
we might recall that others used to tell
their tales: embers rose to light the sky
above the lands where they would live and die,
here between the mountains and the seas,
and words curled round the rivers and the trees.
All are lost – but we may glimpse their ghosts
at times, flitting round the lonely coasts,
in mountain gorges, when we know to look,
or call them from the pages of a book
which gathers fragments like it gathered sherds
to recreate a world of missing words,
as if the land held pasts that it has known,
inviting us to write it with our own.
They’ll rise for a moment, mute and wan,
– they’ll reach to us, uncertain, and be gone
before we know an individual face.
words no longer hold them in this place.
and wound about the lands where they were told
in other times so that they seem as one
with all that lies beneath a foreign sun,
like vines that grow on warm and weathered stones
or veins that stretch about their living bones.
Or lie to me and say this is that place
and in that story you and I will trace
the past that never was, so that this seems
a land where tales have been told (and dreams
have passed) without a break from distant ages,
written to survive their yellowed pages.
But when this is a place where stories dwell
we might recall that others used to tell
their tales: embers rose to light the sky
above the lands where they would live and die,
here between the mountains and the seas,
and words curled round the rivers and the trees.
All are lost – but we may glimpse their ghosts
at times, flitting round the lonely coasts,
in mountain gorges, when we know to look,
or call them from the pages of a book
which gathers fragments like it gathered sherds
to recreate a world of missing words,
as if the land held pasts that it has known,
inviting us to write it with our own.
They’ll rise for a moment, mute and wan,
– they’ll reach to us, uncertain, and be gone
before we know an individual face.
words no longer hold them in this place.
Other Lives
(Voices from Another Room)
The scent of roses spreads again
from public gardens where berries swell
and grasses rise to find the sun.
I’ve come to you to take you there,
away from where your days are kept
and thoughts are followed round the walls.
We’ll watch the goldfish in their ponds,
glinting under lily pads
, and see the breezes in the branches;
we’ll appear in other lives
as people pass us on the paths
and birds emerge from hidden places.
You could speak to me, or not,
and buy an ice cream as you did
on other days beneath blue skies,
amid the sounds of other lives,
or I could speak, if you preferred,
or neither say a single word.
from public gardens where berries swell
and grasses rise to find the sun.
I’ve come to you to take you there,
away from where your days are kept
and thoughts are followed round the walls.
We’ll watch the goldfish in their ponds,
glinting under lily pads
, and see the breezes in the branches;
we’ll appear in other lives
as people pass us on the paths
and birds emerge from hidden places.
You could speak to me, or not,
and buy an ice cream as you did
on other days beneath blue skies,
amid the sounds of other lives,
or I could speak, if you preferred,
or neither say a single word.
About a Bay
(The Sun, the Moon & Ripe Cucumbers)
I wrote this place for you when you need rest,
where you can paddle in a long, white bay,
and watch the waves roll in, as sure as breath,
and hear the call of gulls, and feel the spray,
or wander hills – I’ve written rivers there,
with boats that wait to guide you on their flow
through fragrant fields, where gentle breezes stir
as songbirds sing and wildflowers grow.
Oh, life can get on top of you at times
but when you're weary or (please, no) distressed
these waves will roll to shore, and rivers run.
I wrote this place for you when you need rest,
where you can paddle in a long, white bay,
and watch the waves roll in, as sure as breath,
and hear the call of gulls, and feel the spray,
or wander hills – I’ve written rivers there,
with boats that wait to guide you on their flow
through fragrant fields, where gentle breezes stir
as songbirds sing and wildflowers grow.
Oh, life can get on top of you at times
but when you're weary or (please, no) distressed
these waves will roll to shore, and rivers run.
I wrote this place for you when you need rest,
To Wake the Dead
(The Sun, the Moon & Ripe Cucumbers)
We’ll sing to those who cannot hear
or if they hear we cannot know;
we’ll sing to them and tears will flow
for all we held and still hold dear
and all that we must still forget,
but in the middle of our song
imagine those for whom we long
have heard us though they’re sleeping yet.
They hear, they wake, they rise again
to move among us as we play.
Stay, my loves – they cannot stay
and life can’t be as it was then.
Too soon the notes no longer play,
and we must take ourselves to bed
to sleep as if among the dead
then wake to meet silent day.
or if they hear we cannot know;
we’ll sing to them and tears will flow
for all we held and still hold dear
and all that we must still forget,
but in the middle of our song
imagine those for whom we long
have heard us though they’re sleeping yet.
They hear, they wake, they rise again
to move among us as we play.
Stay, my loves – they cannot stay
and life can’t be as it was then.
Too soon the notes no longer play,
and we must take ourselves to bed
to sleep as if among the dead
then wake to meet silent day.
Into Town
(The Sun, the Moon & Ripe Cucumbers)
A line of palms divides the motorway
and when it’s windy, and the sun is bright,
the palm fronds buck and sway and catch the light
like waves that glimmer in the wind-blown bay
or plastic shaped to somebody’s design
in buildings that appear as cars descend
towards the town, around the mountain bend
and down, past fronds that change as if a sign
that what awaits is not what lies behind
and drivers’ spirits lift. Not knowing why,
they feel the promises of days gone by
when they might travel into town to find
a holiday’s amusement with their friends,
or glimpse a time when such a thing might be,
that here between the mountains and the sea
their lives might yet be turned to other ends.
Palm fronds buck and sway and catch the light;
the day is windy, and the sun is bright.
and when it’s windy, and the sun is bright,
the palm fronds buck and sway and catch the light
like waves that glimmer in the wind-blown bay
or plastic shaped to somebody’s design
in buildings that appear as cars descend
towards the town, around the mountain bend
and down, past fronds that change as if a sign
that what awaits is not what lies behind
and drivers’ spirits lift. Not knowing why,
they feel the promises of days gone by
when they might travel into town to find
a holiday’s amusement with their friends,
or glimpse a time when such a thing might be,
that here between the mountains and the sea
their lives might yet be turned to other ends.
Palm fronds buck and sway and catch the light;
the day is windy, and the sun is bright.