Here's a photo John took in our back garden today.
And here's a poem from me...
Pink Flowering Gum
This frustration at imprecision
I must refuse, using only the general name,
could search and press for taxonomic clarity: yes
to this feature, no to that, and whittle
back to Latin exactitude but what
would it prove, only restate an apparent
lack of purchase on the world
how can you be a poet
and not know that?
said as I wandered a coastal heath
long ago in youth, lost in the vast
profusion of instances
just as today I hover bee-light, birdlike
around this mass, a bursting presence
outside language in which all states
make themselves felt at once, from newgreen nub
through slick huddle of thread like wet feathers at
egg-chink on to this pink, each flung fist or flourish that rings
its single stigma frail as snail horn that would wince
should I presume to touch.
No comments:
Post a Comment