Landscape

Tom Perkinson

from "Landscape"


"I want to watch the blue mist of the night come on,
The windows and the stars illumined, one by one,
The rivers of dark smoke pour upward lazily,
And the moon rise and turn them silver. I shall see
The springs, the summers, and the autumns slowly pass;
And when old Winter puts his blank face to the glass,
I shall close all my shutters, pull the curtains tight,
And build me stately palaces by candlelight."


Charles Baudelaire, trans. George Dillon

I like the way this poem moves from outside, watching the night come on and the colours change, to inside, and watching the candle's flicker. That retreat from Winter is like a kind of hibernation. I imagine someone reading by candlelight, with stories and characters coming to life out of thin air. It's magical, when you think about it - blue mist and silver moons rising outside, and whole worlds within our heads. What fortunate beings we are. Beauty everywhere.