After Rain

Geri Waddington

After Rain

The snails have made a garden of green lace:
broderie anglaise from the cabbages,
chantilly from the choux-fleurs, tiny veils-
I see already that I lift the blind
upon a woman's wardrobe of the mind.

Such female whimsy floats about me like
a kind of tulle, a flimsy mesh,
while feet in gumboots pace the rectangles-
garden abstracted, geometry awash-
an unknown theorem argued in green ink,
dropped in the bath.
Euclid in glorious chlorophyll, half drunk.

I none too sober slipping in the mud
where rigged with guys of rain
the clothes-reel gauche
as the rangy skeleton of some
gaunt delicate spidery mute
is pitched as if
listening;
while hung from one thin rib
a silver web-
its infant, skeletal, diminutive,
now sagged with sequins, pulled ellipsoid,
glistening.

I suffer shame in all these images.
The garden is primeval, Giovanni
in soggy denim squelches by my hub,
over his ruin
shakes a doleful head.
But he so beautiful and diademed,
his long Italian hands so wrung with rain
I find his ache exists beyond my rim
and almost weep to see a broken man
made subject to my whim.

O choir him, birds, and let him come to rest
within this beauty as one rests in love,
till pears upon the bough
encrusted with
small snails as pale as pearls
hang golden in
a heart that know tears are a part of love.

And choir me too to keep my heart a size
larger than seeing, unseduced by each
bright glimpse of beauty striking like a bell,
so that the whole may toll,
its meaning shine
clear of the myriad images that still-
do what I will-encumber its pure line.

P.K. Page

Look how she does it. Broderie anglaise, chantilly, tulle, chlorophyl, sequins, ellisoid, theorum, encrusted, diademmed, pearls. From these she makes lace out of cabbages, geometry out of garden steps, silver webs out of clothes-lines, a king out of a gardener, jewels out of raindrops. The images she casts on our mind's eye are extraordinary. I see old mythological gardens  - "pears upon the bough/ encrusted with/ small snails as pale as pearls/ hang golden" - is this the Garden of the Hesperides where Hercules travels to find the golden fruit? Is this an enchanted garden? Or a pest-ridden, soggy cabbage patch worked by gum-booted and discouraged gardener? And then that "O choir him, birds," - and "Keep my heart a size larger than seeing." reminds me of Dylan Thomas - and really, isn't that the key line?

"Keep my heart a size larger than seeing."

The Iris

Unknown

The iris standing in the marsh - so blue,

Its roots have drunk the sky's reflected hue.

HO-O

fr. A Net of Fireflies

translated by Harold Stewart

Pretty hard to add to that. And that's the thing about haiku - the distillation of so many thoughts. Packing the maximum punch into each word. Lovely, isn't it? The roots drinking up the reflected blue? . 
 
   

A Kite is a Victim

Richard Bawden

A Kite is a Victim

A kite is a victim you are sure of.
You love it because it pulls
gentle enough to call you master,
strong enough to call you fool;
because it lives
like a desperate trained falcon
in the high sweet air,
and you can always haul it down
to tame it in your drawer.

A kite is a fish you have already caught
in a pool where no fish come,
so you play him carefully and long,
and hope he won’t give up,
or the wind die down.

A kite is the last poem you’ve written,
so you give it to the wind,
but you don’t let it go
until someone finds you
something else to do.

A kite is a contract of glory
that must be made with the sun,
so make friends with the field
the river and the wind,
then you pray the whole cold night before,
under the travelling cordless moon,
to make you worthy and lyric and pure. 

      

Leonard Cohen



This poem came to mind while my family was out flying kites this week. There was just enough wind, and I got the kite high enough to relax a little, and thought to myself, "Am I guiding the kite, or is the kite leading me?" Like with walking a dog, the roles seem to alternate. Sometimes we lead, and sometimes we are led. It's interesting. Who is the master, and who is the fool? 

I haven't got to the bottom of this poem yet. It's a fun one. Just recently I've tried switching out the word "kite" with the word "life", and it works, it makes sense. We live in that paradoxical place - we're free, but we're not free. We live as if we can make choices, and we do, but we are limited, very limited, and true  freedom is an illusion. That line, "A kite is a fish you have already caught/In a pool where no fish come." I'll be happily puzzling over for years.

 

The Other Side of the Mirror

Man Ray

The Other Side of the Mirror

I sat before my glass one day,

And conjured up a vision bare,

Unlike the aspects glad and gay,

That erst were found reflected there -

The vision of a woman, wild

With more than womanly despair.

Her hair stood back on either side

A face bereft of loveliness.

It had no envy now to hide

What once no man on earth could guess.

It formed the thorny aureole

Of hard, unsanctified distress.

Her lips were open - not a sound

Came though the parted lines of red,

Whate'er it was, the hideous wound

In silence and secret bled.

No sigh relieved her speechless woe,

She had no voice to speak her dread.

And in her lurid eyes there shone

The dying flame of life's desire,

Made mad because its hope was gone,

And kindled at the leaping fire

Of jealousy and fierce revenge,

And strength that could not change nor tire.

Shade of a shadow in the glass,

O set the crystal surface free!

Pass - as the fairer visions pass -

Nor ever more return, to be

The ghost of a distracted hour,

That heard me whisper: - 'I am she!'

  

Mary Coleridge

“Unsanctified distress.” !! Sometimes the words fit like they're made for you. Mary wrote this more than a hundred years ago, and yet she feels so close. As if she were just on the other side of the glass. I wonder if her “distracted hour” did pass. I wonder when mine will.

      

   

Love

Love

Fragile as a spider's web

Hanging in space

Between tall grasses,

It is torn again and again.

A passing dog

Or simply the wind can do it.

Several times a day

I gather myself together

And spin it again.

Spiders are patient weavers.

They never give up.

And who knows

What keeps them at it?

Hunger, no doubt,

And hope.

May Sarton

fr. Halfway To Silence

“Several times a day/I gather myself together/And spin it again.” The spiderweb as a metaphor for the fragility of love is a clear example of the practical usefulness of poetry. To have this metaphor show a web as both a work of beauty and a necessity; an expression of hunger and  hope, and how it requires daily, patient attention and repair, clearly shows me what love is  - not a falling into, like an inevitable accident, or a chemistry, like an inevitable combustion, or a fever, like an inavoidable illness, but a patient, moment by moment paying attention. An acceptance of damage, injury, and luck (bad and good). A commitment to starting over and over, to beginning anew  - every day.

Patience, that's love. Not giving up, that's love.

The web seems fragile, but as you no doubt remember, spider silk is stronger than steel.