Courage #9 – Still Life: A lockdown poem

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The trick lies in the highlights
You set them in strong. Pure
Dazzling bright whites. To shoulder
The weight of the darks. Take care
To register what you see only. Not
What you know is there. The shape
Of all seen through each, shapes
The sense of all.
Stillness lies in the eye of the beholder.
Things move apart to come together again.
The beauty is all in the transitions
The glow the shimmer the shine the glitter
The overlay of time on space. And when
Memory is all there is to work from
There is still life still colour still observance
Still courage in grace.

May Day Mayday

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How may we labour
To save ourselves?
Shall we gather about us
Bulwarks of uncertainty
To guard us from future
Arrogance? Shall we collect
Images of unaccommodated mankind
That we may be protected
From fears of ennui, enclosed
In our own four walls. Will
The memory of mountains
Not seen in decades ensure
Our survival as a species?
For myself, I call forth
The blazing amaltas that
Flame the streets of my city
That their fire consume the
Distance between us, and
Refine my relief to pity.

Anniversaries

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The bright night is a lovers’ gift
Impulsive, expansive, holding within it
An oceanic depth, a horizonless breadth
Vanishing even as it is passed from
One’s hand to the other’s. The giving
Is all. Its light has seeped into
Your hair and mine, a silvering.
As the dogs play and the children
Laugh, the path lays itself beneath
Our feet. In the windless skies there is
A delivering. In the running waters
The sparkle of promise is sweet.

Orange

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A word for which there is no rhyme.
And why would there be? I give you, instead,
A thousand words, yet none approximate
The elusive sublime that is the
Crunch of salt on the plate, the crisp
Of the browned edge, the translucent gloss
On the yolk, the promise of fullness on
The sun-soaked slice. Indeed, the
Transience of the cherry blossoms on the
Spring-time blue say more about freshness than
Any words could do, and yet, line for line,
There is no verse equal to the limpid shine
That will leave its fragrance on your fingers
Long after its gone. No, the sublimity of
The unrhymable is felt in what lingers long
After all rhyming is done.

In which Tyra teaches Joey how to be a watch dog

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So our cat is being raised by the dog.
He’s learnt to tilt his head like she does
The better to hear, and she goes nervously
To him if there is any fear that someone
Is going to catch it for pushing ornaments off
The table again. No surprise then
That today he was initiated into the
Rite of Passage – or the Rite of the
Lane, at any rate – the first associated
With attaining Watchdoghood: the
Guardian and Protector of the
Neighbourhood. She demonstrates the
Position on the Perch, paws out, tail
Behind. From here you can see them
She explains, go down the lane to the
Garage and into the street. In case
They need you to find them. You never know
She warns, if they’ll come back. It’s vital
Therefore, that we keep track.
Joey cranes his neck, tries not to make
It too apparent. He’s sure he’ll grow into it
But right now there’s an inherent impediment:
He can’t see over the balcony wall. He
Can’t let on that he’s not tall. Studiously
He inspects the rail. A cat can never be seen
To fail. 

Now that our masks have revealed us

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How curious, this motley masquerade
To sashay forth in some carnival’s
Parade as if the gold and dazzle and points
Of lace could present to the crowds some
Other soul, an alien head, a faerie face.
What deception is left to practice now
When we hide ourselves from neighbours
And friends. Will we know each other, when
This ends, or shall we hear each stranger ask
Who are you now, without your mask? 

A Table of Contents

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I hadn’t seen the house. He hadn’t seen
The table. We were buying momentous
Things for a future in which we’d never
Been. “Bigger,” he said, “tell them to make it
Wider and longer!” “Where will we place it?”
I said, looking at the dimensions he’d sent us.
But the size of a table depends on more than
How many sit. My parents knew – if you
Build it they will come. And we did. Their
Table held more than ever lived in that
House. There was always room, food,
Conversation. And now we live in self-
Isolation. And the too-big table draws
Together our meagre four – with our
Violins, our laptops, our books, tools, papers
Our cat, puzzles, painting projects – more,
In fact, a binding and gathering of ourselves
To ourselves, a tabling of a core.

Courage #8: An Easter Poem

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Like a false dawn, the late winter snow
Beckons and seduces, shaping itself into
Leaves, coyly clinging to dry branches too
Embarrassed to admit to their saplessness.
See how the melting snow, like a lost love,
Shines the timid light, the brittle lace of
It chasing the gaps into glimmers of
Haplessness. Just for a moment, as you
Pass it by, it holds its dying in mid-air,
A newly shaped bud, unleafed and bare.
Courage is not the coming of Spring;
It is the promise of grace late winter
Will bring.