Saturday 22 September 2012

Bus notes 20

We're coming down the Priory Rd.
and beside us is the wall they built again.
The water's coursing still.
        It's the limits of
        a territory where
        we aren't for ever, past
        the bramble thuggery
        to the clipped green grass.
The Autumn light is harsh
and nothing seems to refract it;
its critical movement scans us as present.
        Then a few stops on
        two small girls watch
        the scenes recede, delighted.
The same light pours in
through their hungry pupils
and glisters beginnings, pictures bliss.
        Whatever kind of ghost I could become
        I remember myself a light starting
        once and faraway and waking up
        to the best games for making.
     

     

4 comments:

  1. A poem with as many movements of mood as the extended reflective moment. The illumination of the closing quatrain is startling. And very fine.

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  2. Yes, the closing lines are wonderful.

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  3. Thank you, both.

    This was a morning poem. I was making my way into work reluctantly until the two girls came as cherubim, malaika, and changed the light.

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  4. "bramble thuggery" funny--I can see this, love it.

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