tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41959071087861727362024-03-19T04:13:29.147+01:00CompassesLucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764296105901909328noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-15062363778742110512014-03-20T11:18:00.003+01:002014-03-21T18:48:28.558+01:00Swallow, where does your thread lead?<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Threads. They swung like prayer flags, rippled </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">in the breeze, tickled like a ribald anecdote, hung </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">like webs spun on grass on that bright March evening.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">We’ll lose them, I said.</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">No matter, you replied. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I wait for the swallows to return now, </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">hoping for a blue wingtip</span></span></div>
<span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">drawn across my cheek in the dark.</span></span>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764296105901909328noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-57456783085515385392011-11-06T13:27:00.001+01:002011-11-06T16:03:40.398+01:00If you could would you go?<strong><span style="font-size: large;">A ball of string</span></strong><br />
<br />
"To escape Crete and its poisonous mazes,<br />
which bend the mind and leave it empty," <br />
said Daedalus who survived the flight,<br />
"such extravagant gestures are permitted."<br />
But Icarus flew too high, some say too low.<br />
His crafted wings, softened in the sun or soaked in spray,<br />
lost wax and feathers <br />
and he fell down for ever.<br />
<br />
To explore unpredictable spaces in unfamiliar elements<br />
is to follow the most delicate of birds, which drinks<br />
as it skims the water, crosses oceans and continents,<br />
feeds on flies, perches on telegraph wires<br />
like musical notations, knows where to go, where to land<br />
and when. Its nests are mythic architecture.<br />
which country people do not touch<br />
for fear the milk turn quickly sour or the hens stop laying.<br />
<br />
One of the ape family, adept at negotiation and deals, <br />
I hang on a tree, one hand gripping a branch, the other<br />
in the air to catch the birds that fly overhead. Earth remains<br />
my element. If I could I 'd dare to enter the vast intelligence<br />
of the unsuspecting and the unaware, to navigate without compass<br />
or chart, and challenge gravity with a careless laugh.<br />
But, discrete and far too clever, I cannot track the swallow's flight<br />
except with wavering and uncertain thought, the dupe of fantasy.<br />
<br />
A ball of string would help me find the way out<br />
through the way in. Though not alone. A forest of broken threads<br />
testifies to other searchers who have got nowhere.<br />
We bump into one another with apologetic grunts. It's dark.<br />
The noise augments the sense of bafflement and loss.<br />
Swallow, where does your thread lead?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06972049290586377462noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-63170686774484944472011-07-30T21:34:00.000+02:002011-07-30T21:34:45.383+02:00Kite or swallow?<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">A scarlet lozenge, a convention of a kite</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">-the kites we had as kids looked nothing like that when</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">we flew them on the chalk hill's humpbacked height</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">but still - a geometric diagram transected, then </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">an s-curved tail, a knotted row of bright</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">blue bows, which looked at once again</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">prove to be messages on paper, folded tight.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Unfolding them I see some say</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"Sorry no prize, please have another go!"</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">With some the words break up, trickle away,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">lose sense and pattern, but just a few do show</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">solidity and meaning, substantial forms which stay</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">with me, find lodging there, and grow </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">into companions for another day.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Seeing the world from up there where the kite</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">is flying, the human figure tweaking at the string</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">is small, expressionless, below, its movements slight,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">the distant hills a convex line, the sun a thing</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">to conjure with, and throw another light</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">onto the blue-black oil-plume of the swallow's wing,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">its joyous, startling, acuity of flight.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">And as it flashes by the blue hills' bow</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">past other skylines, where the sea moves grey</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">and gulls and gannets plunge and swing</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">into the wave troughs' crackled white,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">to roost in palms in lands where men</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">wave birdlimed brushes to and fro,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">if you could follow, would you go?</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764296105901909328noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-69911878050771211002011-04-23T12:54:00.000+02:002011-04-23T12:54:22.683+02:00What are the things which you wish that you knew?As swallows try to catch them in nets of air, <br />
Answers are harder than questions to find.<br />
And so, inspired by yours, here's mine, my dear,<br />
Honest as may be and returned in kind.<br />
<br />
A cat named Curiosity stalks in my care<br />
But it's clear the animal's designed <br />
To hunt with eye and claw, whatever's there<br />
And overwhelm with trophies an overburdened mind.<br />
<br />
With so much data stacked up everywhere,<br />
Rather than know more, I'd like to understand<br />
The complexities which figure <br />
In the cries and shadows of a troubled land.<br />
<br />
Those who look for truth must learn to care<br />
For crops trodden down by rain and wind,<br />
Burnt in hatred and ill will; and come to fear<br />
What threatens to destroy them in the end.<br />
<br />
It's not so much the structure of a star<br />
Or particle or gene, but what lies beyond<br />
The turbulence that swirls about us, near and far<br />
And neither head nor heart can comprehend.<br />
<br />
So my question curls up and settles where<br />
You stand, your camera and eye aligned:<br />
What's your choice? The swallows' game of dare?<br />
Or bobbing kite tugged by a fretful wind?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06972049290586377462noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-40011162693934693252011-04-08T21:35:00.000+02:002011-04-08T21:35:17.241+02:00What promises have you to give? Or give up on? Or break?<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Promises, promises. So that's what you're after</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I've heard far too many and kept far too few,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">forgotten, forgiven, in tears or in laughter,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">it's highly unlikely I'll make any new.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The world is too fleeting and formless to count on,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">the same goes for me, and I dare say for you,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">oak turns into acorn and molehill to mountain,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">things can turn upside-down, quite out of the blue.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The river we step in is never the same one</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">whether we paddle or try to swim through,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">so what is the self that arrived with my name on?</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Cells change and replace themselves, minds will do too.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Yet sometimes to stay put is what we require,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">and loyalty and patience are powerful glue,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">to hold us fast here in the warmth of the fire</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">our backs to the window, enjoying the view.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">So here I am still trying to answer your query</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">without being pompous, or dour, or untrue,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">or to clothe it in fake metaphysical theory,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">if doggerel's what comes it'll just have to do.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">So if you're still contented with fireside gazing </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I'll toss you another loose line to pursue</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">(though spring's at the door and there's no time for lazing):</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">What are the things which you wish that you knew?</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764296105901909328noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-56945307367086819602011-01-10T12:35:00.003+01:002011-01-10T14:36:30.115+01:00What I see in the flamesThis new year, amid the crack of ice <br />
And unspecified threats, I look into the fire<br />
For help and comfort, or advice,<br />
As anxious flames leap high and higher.<br />
They're puzzled by the elements they're in,<br />
Crowded down by elephantine shapes<br />
In drifts of darkness they can't contain<br />
While in the embers a salamander slips<br />
In and out like a promise to be given.<br />
<br />
What promises have you to give?<br />
Or give up on?<br />
<br />
I think again about the phoenix<br />
And doubt the promise of redemption<br />
When looking at the burning sticks;<br />
Yet think of what is going to happen,<br />
Of leaves composting in a bin,<br />
Of yeast cells working through the dough,<br />
Of a spinning top's brief, trembling spin<br />
And the crunch of frozen snow.<br />
I promise that I'll watch the fire<br />
Till it gives way to smoke, and the smoke<br />
Has climbed the air and is no longer there.<br />
<br />
What promises have you to give?<br />
Or give up on? Or break?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06972049290586377462noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-29136159107654954502010-12-23T21:06:00.000+01:002010-12-23T21:06:18.314+01:00How then to live in the space there is?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">As apples round into form, from the core</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">take on the heft of substance, fill then fall.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">As birches turning, tall on hills, drop gold, and jays </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">shout at treetops, flash blue temper, caw and call. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">As wax wanes, burning in pools, glows and spills,</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">and the lemon-scented leaf sends down</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">its downy messengers, unfurls, roots, grows.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">As the solemn, solitary child plays.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The edge of space we touch at our finger ends,</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">we cast out webs, threads, spools, </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">hashing up space like cheese wires, cross,</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">form nodes. We run along them,</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">jump, hang in the air. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">How then to live? As if the moon</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">were always over snow-lined fields</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">where crows walk, and the dull blue </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">glowing curve of evening cloud, so</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">the leaves snap with cold at the road's edge</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">and you know that pheasants hunch</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">amongst the spikes of sedge and bone yellow</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">umbels of the winter weeds, but let them be,</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">coming home as you are to the hiss of the fire.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">And what do you see in the flames?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764296105901909328noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-81409571065526548642010-11-07T13:09:00.001+01:002010-11-08T10:39:35.788+01:00Where would you be if not in this place?The hydra-headed question, its fangs deep<br />
In wrist and ankle, burns in the cage of bone.<br />
No response of grace or wit, no cry, no leap<br />
Of inspiration can release its grip.<br />
Instead it breeds another question<br />
And another, twisting to escape.<br />
<br />
How to be in two places at one moment,<br />
In adjacent, unconnected universes?<br />
Or here, at this given moment,<br />
The watcher and the watched,<br />
The force that thought represses<br />
And the flood dispatched?<br />
<br />
How to be in Babylon in time?<br />
Spinning beyond light and shade,<br />
In time for lunch or the end of time?<br />
Yes, a one-way ticket is a tease,<br />
Sharp and fatal as a Samurai blade,<br />
Dressed with oil of cloves; and promises?<br />
<br />
On The Bullet, now, from Tokyo<br />
To Kyoto. The country hurries past<br />
Too fast to know it,<br />
Or to know, beside me<br />
The suited man who quietly reads.<br />
He rises and bows, Goodbye," he says.<br />
I rise, I bow, Goodbye," I say.<br />
<br />
A conversation never had.<br />
But, in a fine rain, instead,<br />
Among manicured trees, I hear,<br />
Repeated, the same hollow note.<br />
A bamboo tube, pivoted<br />
In the stream, fills and tips and falls,<br />
<br />
And knocks a stone at intervals<br />
Long enough to forget, and short <br />
Enough to recall its repetition -<br />
A lonely sound, hollow as a bone,<br />
That, coming back, takes you by surprise.<br />
I'm still waiting for it to return.<br />
<br />
How then to live in the space there is?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06972049290586377462noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-39345872451020979972010-03-01T20:47:00.001+01:002010-03-01T20:47:58.962+01:00What's in the box?Perhaps if I open it, let me see... Crack! <br />
Leering and swaying and squeaking with glee<br />
spiked on a bedspring, out will jump Jack.<br />
<br />
Or is there a cat there, fluidly<br />
slipping out, purring and curving - unless<br />
it's dead, poisoned and rigid? Or might there be<br />
<br />
a dog which has learned to be helpless<br />
shuttled and shocked, carefully tortured <br />
by a peer-reviewed high-priest of happiness?<br />
<br />
If I turned out the box, perhaps I could<br />
still find hope there, a rattling, lone<br />
remainder, a tarnished coin, good<br />
<br />
currency, tender still, though very much down<br />
in value. But soft. You've already told<br />
of a perfume of citrus-peel, blown<br />
<br />
from the lands of spices, of lemon trees, old,<br />
brittle, but fragrant still, contained inside bright<br />
glossy red lacquer patterned with gold,<br />
<br />
a tiny, dried wonder. And something so slight<br />
can, for a moment, by alchemical grace<br />
cast out all evils, put them to flight.<br />
<br />
So cup your hands round it, and hold it to your face...<br />
Where would you be, if not in this place?Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764296105901909328noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-27551147803984553642010-01-09T12:57:00.003+01:002010-03-03T11:10:02.092+01:00What on earth shall I draw to day?Imagine, when you look, how the eyes<br />
Of Rembrandt and Picasso widen,<br />
Their bleak gaze, hard and black,<br />
Your book open like a laugh,<br />
Pencil sharp as an angel's foot,<br />
Your eyes on the scrounge.<br />
Watch fissures in walls and faces,<br />
Narrow and wry, where lenses<br />
Cannot go, where in the dark in the skull<br />
Or in a spiral shell, particles<br />
Dance at one time in different places,<br />
Or in "the infinite spaces<br />
Between the stars" which terrified<br />
Pascal; or in the spaces<br />
Between the head and heart<br />
Where animals watch for prey ...<br />
A line will do, just a line<br />
To wire the air, connect the thought,<br />
Lead from one thing to another,<br />
Hang an apple on a tree,<br />
Place a loaf on a table.<br />
Answer if you can on the way<br />
The questions that come up:<br />
What is hidden in this jar<br />
Or in that lacquered Chinese box,<br />
Where, hard and dry, curled segments<br />
Of tangerine peel are stored<br />
(To perfume ice cream or soup),<br />
Faded but aromatic still.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06972049290586377462noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-42667086166105588502009-11-11T19:54:00.000+01:002009-11-11T19:54:26.956+01:00Cool in the bright air?<strong>You, there in the bright air, are you cool?</strong><br />
<br />
I would be, right up there<br />
among the glass-sharp crystals<br />
of ice and octane fuel, dust and minerals,<br />
jet trails, comet tails and blue-white angels<br />
of the upper air,<br />
<br />
with earth and all its mess <br />
far off below, its mucky pigments,<br />
bones and hides and dung and sweat,<br />
and self-preserving urgent flesh, invisible <br />
to my frozen, naked eyes.<br />
<br />
But no.<br />
I'm still here, on the ground,<br />
just blood-heat, thank you, midway,<br />
contained within an ambient landscape <br />
(grassland and some scattered trees...)<br />
my dampened, stubby-fingered hands<br />
filled with red ochre, and charcoal from the fire,<br />
<br />
wondering<br />
<br />
'What on earth shall I draw today?'Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764296105901909328noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-84208506982408897872009-10-13T14:59:00.003+02:002009-10-13T15:20:05.785+02:00Just what have you been doing with yourself?<strong></strong><br />Sheltering by day from the sun I sit<br />In the cave, in the cool cave, watching the walls<br />For cracks and crevices to stretch and fit<br /><br />The shapes of leaping animals that live outside,<br />Where nothing stands still for a moment<br />And the mouth of the sky is open wide.<br /><br />The dust with which my mouth is full,<br />I spit on the wall, and shape with my thumb<br />A creature, half man half animal.<br /><br />It's cool in the shadows in the cave.<br />The gods who live here are asleep.<br />I'll wake them with the din they crave.<br /><br />I'll beat with a bone this tight stretched skin<br />Till it trembles. I'm not primitive; I know<br />It's the 21st century I'm in.<br /><br />And I won't be here for long<br />To spit pigment on the crumbling wall,<br />Hoping the picture won't go wrong.<br /><br />Most of us are waiting for a bus<br />If not an angel with a blinding light,<br />Until the screwers come to unscrew us.<br /><br />The words with which my mouth is full,<br />I spit on the wall and paint in my head,<br />A creature half man half animal.<br />You there, in the bright air, are you cool?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06972049290586377462noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-522874539687263602009-08-22T14:52:00.002+02:002010-01-09T16:02:35.890+01:00All the lonely people, where do they all come from?They're sewn from motley, so it seems, threadbare, thin<br />
patches, tattered clothes from shabby, faded scraps<br />
which sag, or don't meet at the seams, show leering gaps<br />
embarrass us with sight of unaccustomed, light-starved skin.<br />
<br />
Or else they're sown from serpent's teeth, pulled from the grin <br />
of the reptile's skull, and scattered in the dust,<br />
fleshless and clattering bones who only know they must<br />
hurt, fight and kill, burn rankly from the emptiness within.<br />
<br />
Mis-shapen, sad or savage then they seem,<br />
and alien. But who's that kidding? I'll not deny the fact,<br />
the face kept in the jar is also on my shelf.<br />
<br />
Love (tra-la-la-la!) proposes that we're not alone, and may redeem,<br />
we hope - if losing it won't kill us first - the act<br />
of living. So tell me now, just what have you been doing with yourself?Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764296105901909328noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-36740232762252556682009-07-26T16:17:00.005+02:002009-07-27T11:42:37.968+02:00Who is it who can tell me who I am?Why is it that I need to ask the question? Why<br />Should anyone who cares, be there to know,<br />On stage or in the wings, which actors throw<br />Their costumes off, tired of pretence and try,<br /><br />From shame, to bring themselves to say, " I'm true"?<br />For actors may stop acting, and not just pretend to fall.<br />More likely then, that this doolally king can call<br />No longer for the respect and recognition due<br /><br />To one who knew so many tricks and scams,<br />(As you have to, who struggle in the driving seat),<br />Who now must see the truth, its heart and hands and feet,<br />And discover routes worn through endless rooms,<br /><br />The tables, chairs and beds inside his head,<br />Their range and content and arrangement,<br />The sadness of the tools eroded worn and bent,<br />Discarded in corners where the dust has fed.<br /><br />From the lake of mud that steams and bubbles in the sun,<br />Rises this old boy, with one foot in the future.<br />He gazes desperate and bewildered at the questioner<br />And in a mirror catches sight of a person unknown<br /><br />Leering back at him with a dark and ancient guile:<br />Someone else, elsewhere, in a hurricane lost?<br />Or the shreds of another, carved out of mist,<br />Who nurses in his skull an angel or a crocodile?<br /><br />For many selves crowd through the enfilade<br />Of rooms with doors that open wide for them and close behind,<br />Where they search through time for others of their kind,<br />And with a tra-la-la, find joy sometimes before they fade.<br /><br /><br /><br />All the lonely people, where do they all come from?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06972049290586377462noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-64686215512672606322009-07-09T21:29:00.000+02:002009-07-09T21:30:45.018+02:00Who do you think you are?Who? is hard. What? less so:<br />A bundle, a ganglion of fears<br />and hopes; a reptile brain<br />binary switching, snip-snap, between<br />life and the other; an eye, an ear,<br />a mouth, a nose... who knows?<br /><br />A memory, mimic, mirror, though<br />speckled, smeared, unclear,<br />it gives back little; then again<br />perhaps you think you've seen<br />a shape something like yours here,<br />or heard familiar echoes, you suppose...<br /><br />There is, they say, nobody in the driving seat <br />at all; no me, no you, no discrete<br />self to be, for self itself's a sham,<br />forms, fluid and dissolving, are our complete<br />story. Yet, still, we hear ourselves repeat,<br /><br />'Who is it who can tell me who I am?'Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764296105901909328noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-64063514604411052672009-06-20T15:08:00.004+02:002009-06-20T15:29:59.896+02:00What do you fear? What do you hope for?Hope and fear in one immense flash gone,<br />The switch tripped, the end lost in the beginning,<br />The question on the road, knocked down, unanswered.<br />Worst of all, I fear not to know what's going to happen<br />Next, or ever after in the story, when it won't matter<br />If Jack and Jill are drowned and love is lost for good,<br />And the dragon and St George fall down together in a heap,<br />And a straight white line and a single note declare<br />Every hope and speculation out of court.<br />Lips, I fear, closed tight to greet the question,<br />The blank page, the cold eye, the hollow fruit.<br />I fear the click as the clock springs tighten,<br />And hands, with nowhere else to go, go round and round,<br />Empty railways stations and the shudder of rock and roll.<br />I fear that no room may be left in the heart for fear.<br />Yet I can still hope in place of fear, on waking up, to hear<br />The cold song of blackbirds who know the sun will rise, and when.<br /><br /><br /><br />Who do you think you are?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06972049290586377462noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-50684900211612510052009-06-02T21:54:00.001+02:002009-06-04T08:44:03.303+02:00What are you waiting for?I'm waiting for the fire to catch, and for the freeze;<br />for the embers to fade and for the thaw.<br /><br />I'm waiting for the drifting log to turn,<br />to feel the crunch of teeth shearing<br />through flesh and bone, to flail, limbless<br />haemorrhaging, sinking, lost.<br /><br />I'm waiting for lunch, for the show to start,<br />I'm waiting for it all to be over.<br />I'm waiting for all good things<br />to come to an end, I'm waiting for all things<br />to come to those who wait.<br /><br />I'm waiting for the warm south wind to blow<br />the scent of lemon flowers over silver<br />fish-scaled seas, and incense smoke<br />of smouldering phoenix feathers.<br /><br /><br />You may as well ask<br />'What do you fear?'<br />or equally<br />'What do you long for'?<br /><br />You can take your pick...Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764296105901909328noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-83985023694091529372009-05-17T16:37:00.002+02:002009-05-17T16:44:54.973+02:00What have you heard?What have I heard?<br />That people talk to keep the unknown out.<br />I've heard their voices,<br />Low and monotonous,<br />Nervous in the dark; heard a woman sing<br />Of love as cruel and old as tigers;<br />Heard the shingle shift beneath my feet<br />As each wave breaks;<br />Heard empty cans kicked down the street;<br />Heard the waters flowing past<br />The unblinking eye of the crocodile<br />Fast contained in silence.<br />Today, I heard the new year break<br />Out from the old with a cry;<br />Heard a door open and close.<br />What are you waiting for?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06972049290586377462noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-18297587481486100892009-05-04T14:51:00.000+02:002009-05-04T14:52:08.042+02:00Where's my lunch?Where's my lunch? Well now, I fear the cupboard's bare!<br /><br />Time to fall back on scavenging for scraps,<br />through rubbish heaps and dustbins to survive<br />or find a meal, and even those yield slender pickings.<br />Once you'd have found immaculate fish-heads,<br />-tails and -bones like ichthyosaurs, for cartoon cats<br />to steal, potato peel and chips gone cold<br />in papers old as yesterday, and ash and cinders,<br />the residue of forests, fossilised or live.<br />Now it's mostly plastic shards and shreds,<br />old cat food tins and wrappers from fish-fingers.<br /><br />I've heard we'll burn or bury ourselves yet.<br />What have you heard?Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764296105901909328noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-45124160441062246692009-04-27T10:53:00.002+02:002009-04-27T11:04:29.832+02:00Whence comest thou?Out of a cracker, me! A bouncing plastic toy<br />With a joke inside is my progenitor.<br />From the bottom of a bottle, it pops up -<br />A story as likely as any other.<br />Fish-like, I view the world through glass,<br />Could spend a lifetime on the answer,<br />While pulsing screens regurgitate<br />Equations, theories, prophecies.<br />Note, in the the margin of the script,<br />This man - the grandson of a trilobite,<br />Friend of every plant and animal that's fit to eat,<br />Of elephant herds and starling swarms, the shark,<br />The python and the goat -<br />Is puzzled by the noise he makes,<br />The ferment in his vat.<br />"Hey, you!" he shouts at the mirror<br />Which is shouting back at him:<br />"Hey, you! Where's my lunch?"Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06972049290586377462noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-37452397941710116532009-04-16T18:27:00.003+02:002009-04-16T18:28:54.479+02:00Who will police the policemen?Grinning like a nutcracker, hell's bells<br />jangling on his cap, he knows<br />just how to deal with them<br />- takes more than a bungling cop<br />to keep him down!<br /><br />Slapstick's the way to do it;<br />leaving mayhem and murder, infanticide,<br />stolen sausages and the crocodile, all<br />behind him, with the hangman's noose<br />still dangling up ahead, he goes<br />to and fro in the earth,<br />and up and down in it.<br />Pleased as Punch.<br /><br />Whence comest thou?Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764296105901909328noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-16205175402379833882009-04-13T11:47:00.006+02:002009-04-13T13:28:03.020+02:00Are you smiling?It comes and goes, the smile:<br />Involuntary, a sign of grace<br />But forced, becomes a scowl,<br />Or the fixed grin of a crocodile,<br />The sneer on a camel's lips.<br /><br />It's what's inside the head that counts<br />Yet hard to know, of all that's there, what<br />To show; and when to check a quiver<br />At the corner of the mouth, or the light<br />That builds up in the eyes,<br />Alive with pleasure or surprise.<br />But when the gaoler turns his back,<br />Breaks for lunch, or for a nap,<br />With no one guarding it,<br />A memory rises, like the sun in mist.<br /><br />Yes, I guess I'm smiling now... and yet...<br /><em>Qui custodiet ipsos custodes?</em>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06972049290586377462noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-32657640306097099922009-04-07T13:08:00.001+02:002009-04-07T13:10:17.732+02:00What do you know of crocodiles?In sluggish, yeasty rivers, they glide like logs;<br />time laden. They sleep in mud, clogged <br />with a cruel sacredness. They lie and weep,<br />weep and lie, showing that grief's for fools,<br />and tears are trickery. <br /><br />Dense and old, but moving fast to kill,<br />their only wisdom's stony memory. Still<br />cold and glassy eyes reproach<br />from long before we were us,<br />and other monsters were.<br /><br />They swallow time, and, to keep them safe <br />their children too, so that their jaws<br />are cradles, and their mouths disgorge<br />the future. Their smile knows this.<br />And more, which you don't want to know.<br /><br />Are you smiling?Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764296105901909328noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-14569267366335052592009-04-06T12:34:00.003+02:002009-04-06T12:55:50.401+02:00What do you know that I don't know?"I know how, on the inside of my long, thin wrists,<br />The oils of lemon and verbena smell.<br />Where my bangles measure the days of exile,<br />And the English words you told me how to use<br />Turn in my mind like spokes in a wheel."<br /><br />Her story came to me from your memory,<br />Drawn out through time, and from the order<br />Of words and places, shuffled like playing cards.<br />She says: " I have such clever hands.<br />And memories, that nudge and natter,<br />Of shopping precincts and motorways,<br />And swamps that steam in every heart."<br /><br />What do you know of crocodiles?<br />Of the wisdom of crocodiles?<br />Of their hooded eyes, live and greedy,<br />But still as stones, and their sullen patience?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06972049290586377462noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195907108786172736.post-53120998284957197902007-11-11T14:44:00.001+01:002008-12-10T06:29:47.587+01:00Handbook for Explorers 46 to 50<strong><span style="font-size:180%;">46.</span></strong><br /><br /><br />Being wrong has formed your plans of travel<br /><br />As often as being right. The unforeseen<br /><br />Explains, in part, how hard it was to tell<br /><br />Useful signs from those of superstition.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5JuBktZF_CJlHP2CsPL5Ws0HXiu2B9x8pGMr1f3msKbs-qloQ1RN26vmPm39YxUOM2dZjzwK2WONFoUNm39umA3XmrUnfAJk_NVWE_h7BmxtjrzpOBr9fGZP5yDcU5S7dd0uxxWTFL8mC/s1600-h/46a+red.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5131580559087698178" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5JuBktZF_CJlHP2CsPL5Ws0HXiu2B9x8pGMr1f3msKbs-qloQ1RN26vmPm39YxUOM2dZjzwK2WONFoUNm39umA3XmrUnfAJk_NVWE_h7BmxtjrzpOBr9fGZP5yDcU5S7dd0uxxWTFL8mC/s320/46a+red.jpg" border="0" /></a>You could blame limited intelligence<br /><br />For errors of judgement and perception;<br /><br /><br /><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQi7N9OO9vC9kwdTVQyGoUrpnm_flxAqmqzAfPJzdhwdLIEYX3PRwcfZ3Svg25BuLdf7-n5cAzTqR9otRABdq4rzl005uoEJq5xvLsDrkuVAqUBrtywqgM0hYEzl0RGRGG03tnE98clARC/s1600-h/46b+red.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5131580576267567378" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQi7N9OO9vC9kwdTVQyGoUrpnm_flxAqmqzAfPJzdhwdLIEYX3PRwcfZ3Svg25BuLdf7-n5cAzTqR9otRABdq4rzl005uoEJq5xvLsDrkuVAqUBrtywqgM0hYEzl0RGRGG03tnE98clARC/s320/46b+red.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><p>Admit that when, at last you arrived, chance</p><p>Played its part; that what you claimed as reason</p><p>Was wild surmise; that the choir, that captured </p><p>Your ear, was the wind buffeting the wire</p><p>That follows the road; that what you'd endured</p><p>Was for nothing, a worm wriggling in the fire;<br /> </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW9AE6p84Uxnuuz2CaGn_IuOr66GnN3Fi9ypSlMFPpEx-_-aBQ-OmBWz9VEj7kWU41kAHIo2d0mw1kR-vpaF55LmjaMAs7B_OqrNUkqIP76cUXU1GOvR5ogMa-MqVLVk3Jb0OzRc1DgFyT/s1600-h/46c+red.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5131580580562534690" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW9AE6p84Uxnuuz2CaGn_IuOr66GnN3Fi9ypSlMFPpEx-_-aBQ-OmBWz9VEj7kWU41kAHIo2d0mw1kR-vpaF55LmjaMAs7B_OqrNUkqIP76cUXU1GOvR5ogMa-MqVLVk3Jb0OzRc1DgFyT/s320/46c+red.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />That what you took to be the Holy Grail</p><p>Turned out to be just rags and scrap metal.</p><p> </p><p><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">47.</span></strong></p><p> </p><p>The screens that show you, point by point, the track</p><p>Of you time and trouble across the globe,</p><p>Tell you where you were right and wrong, and stack</p><p>Up all your hopes into a flashing strobe.</p><p>Yet, if you believe the technology</p><p>That enters into every corner </p><p>Of your experience and geography,</p><p>You will have nothing left to call your own.</p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjhPHHp6OCKcgsGUQ3HJdEiwWBYybQ1j76nj6V1Tw4wMiekC6xUdaO4Z3UFnYa1BcXANRvciCPv1WU7K7ARAYucq001fyR1gRN8vOQiAptLbhVvrLM4ElzUkWJMzJQyno1WyEhCSu33nIP/s1600-h/47+bw+adj+red.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5131579914842603762" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjhPHHp6OCKcgsGUQ3HJdEiwWBYybQ1j76nj6V1Tw4wMiekC6xUdaO4Z3UFnYa1BcXANRvciCPv1WU7K7ARAYucq001fyR1gRN8vOQiAptLbhVvrLM4ElzUkWJMzJQyno1WyEhCSu33nIP/s400/47+bw+adj+red.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Better to look for faults there, too, which race<br /><br />To reach an unexpected conclusion;<br /><br />Ambiguities, which suggest one face<br /><br />For another, challenge beliefs and strain<br /><br />To restore to a healthy, fractious state<br /><br />The near chaos you movements generate.<br /><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">48.</span></strong><br /><br /><br /><br />To sum it up neatly, is to close it down:<br /><br />The story of your travels doesn't end,<br /><br />And you can't be certain where it began.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwl_sxoDvbheNEmr5P56X99RXUsGKsp9bTPhYQBkj-OaR720iHH2lJ_-10_FsOkhhrQr7GjqOl8HhWk5pvZV0G-_H_rBJAOx7nMhcOrmeGcDAjagbMjz4oUlVoX5N7bBp3bHtEtaMoASbI/s1600-h/48a+red.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5131579554065350850" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwl_sxoDvbheNEmr5P56X99RXUsGKsp9bTPhYQBkj-OaR720iHH2lJ_-10_FsOkhhrQr7GjqOl8HhWk5pvZV0G-_H_rBJAOx7nMhcOrmeGcDAjagbMjz4oUlVoX5N7bBp3bHtEtaMoASbI/s320/48a+red.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />The daft voices of your forebears, behind<br /><br />Your striding shadow, chatter in your brain,<br /><br />Say: "Keep on this way; one day you'll learn to fly;<br /><br />The Pleiades will be your destination."<br /><br />You have the gift of curiosity,<br /><br />And nothing you meet on the road is less<br /><br />Than significant; if you look close enough,<br /><br />Written on each stone you pass is "press"<br /><br />Or "open";...<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5131579571245220050" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv6zNlw6cXNWLuz_EyZX7ZC7_Fk-PsspeIakc1_FquSoOEc23UtkYjNbOy_1arksqysMrdlcD5ozLWx34YnxNSD9Vr7nbW1OHWPAWR5X3i-7LMMRmVunJh5svccXMLa8fzOopfPAcIMaD1/s320/48b+red.jpg" border="0" /> <br />...you hear "come in" in each puff<br /><br />Of wind; a door's half open, always set<br /><br />To halve the gap, halve that, and halve, half that.<br /><br /><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjafTgi12g2vhmFjYDgW6Q9zl0ZEBZR_Ejqoz0ZaH-IJoFDEf9xTfrs287CDBU_1RGcFiS7lMXCJUJluwz40gTuoeqWMWetz7CL1K-obemN8SuWrKAlg5f34A5IIaFS78EsVewXeRMJRx_o/s1600-h/48c+red.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5131579575540187362" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjafTgi12g2vhmFjYDgW6Q9zl0ZEBZR_Ejqoz0ZaH-IJoFDEf9xTfrs287CDBU_1RGcFiS7lMXCJUJluwz40gTuoeqWMWetz7CL1K-obemN8SuWrKAlg5f34A5IIaFS78EsVewXeRMJRx_o/s320/48c+red.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">49.</span></strong></p><p> </p><p>There were things you ahd to dig for on sites</p><p>By the road. ...</p><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5131579206172999858" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbNsD8pyM2QtwyPGEz8JYK9gkK9OENAHIUYp5EPLOmotWWCHKdZmmnpJdkaMg9_sZpgQPwvRMh3Tfje1vDmBjpNZbbFc06gmz9Nbt9_0XqLRqFGgcGb5c935qxGLj0T5g4pHReSv2pXOOg/s320/49a+red.jpg" border="0" /></p> ... No reason to excavate,<br /><br />Except an inborn sympathy for rites<br /><br />Practised long before your time, private,<br /><br />Magical, no longer comprehensible,<br /><br />But prompted by urges bred in desert,<br /><br />Forest, cave - the birthplaces of evil,<br /><br />And of what was good, also, from the start,<br /><br />Original virtue; this collect too,<br /><br />Should be Adam's banner, Eve's song of joy -<br /><br />Not to neglect the animal in you.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLCK_y9B8NiTHnJ-M_-j6mNE5Eg1QQXP-_waD8q_tgExMNT-BJw8slWxJpAmzMMX5H0VWzbHHUHltvJgMwl4lsl7vXUeqMGJpalsFANowLwEJKBOQJBsuGdH29dNt7a12PQsQgZ1qi6-87/s1600-h/49b+red.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5131579042964242594" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLCK_y9B8NiTHnJ-M_-j6mNE5Eg1QQXP-_waD8q_tgExMNT-BJw8slWxJpAmzMMX5H0VWzbHHUHltvJgMwl4lsl7vXUeqMGJpalsFANowLwEJKBOQJBsuGdH29dNt7a12PQsQgZ1qi6-87/s400/49b+red.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />The falcon on your gauntlet, thoughts of prey,<br /><br />Memories of scales and fur, bones piled up,<br /><br />Strike you with a rhythm that just won't stop.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrSvl8sjD0kTjW3QvItLCHY7dULMw73rPQm92s8-0vxwTnJK6ajuLsA3yBji8SKTFCRlVAAQEqOYzL47wAvFblKQtaIIvAXNx7cSoCePACmcKh20AVdxKHEsxPLawq-6HmZK1jQ5u90z9k/s1600-h/49c+red.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5131578909820256402" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrSvl8sjD0kTjW3QvItLCHY7dULMw73rPQm92s8-0vxwTnJK6ajuLsA3yBji8SKTFCRlVAAQEqOYzL47wAvFblKQtaIIvAXNx7cSoCePACmcKh20AVdxKHEsxPLawq-6HmZK1jQ5u90z9k/s320/49c+red.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">50.</span></strong><br /><br /><br />To look back at all the faults and failures,<br /><br />Which have led you to this curious place,<br /><br />Might keep you occupied for years;<br /><br />Or else be worth a quick laugh, without trace<br /><br />Of regret or homily, and no text<br /><br />Drawn from stale notes, no sums or stately sermon.<br /><br />At best, you can admit you were perplexed,<br /><br />Still are, by the meagre spread of reason<br /><br />In the country you know best. Facts are scarce,<br /><br />Too, in these parts and hard to verify;<br /><br />The noise of opinion is continuous.<br /><br />You think, now you're back, it was worth a try;<br /><br />You say, " I've moved, not far from where I was,<br /><br />But enough to see how the distance grows."<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTZh7DBcF23JDp4xs3thQ7d4Y04_BBdCDS8FtCKJkv81xseOCB05oGY0KkzkMY7varwxe2yAuU39t5ZN_QOwnDymf1p3rnNIy82dwvu13pNMNXqEHEnDPGpOfsfyWIYxk2C0QUpSl0DIoq/s1600-h/50adj+red.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5131578652122218626" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTZh7DBcF23JDp4xs3thQ7d4Y04_BBdCDS8FtCKJkv81xseOCB05oGY0KkzkMY7varwxe2yAuU39t5ZN_QOwnDymf1p3rnNIy82dwvu13pNMNXqEHEnDPGpOfsfyWIYxk2C0QUpSl0DIoq/s400/50adj+red.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764296105901909328noreply@blogger.com13