Sunday, 27 February 2011
Saturday, 26 February 2011
Sagaing, Burma
Sagaing
The tea was sweet. Green,
it hung in the chipped cup
like a haze waiting to lift.
Sunlight, filtered through a small
copse of dry trees, hit the
tea. The cloud swirled, fragments
of leaf swimming like dust
in a poor river.
There were as many white temples
as there were specks. Against grey
cloud they stuck out like snow;
I watched a line of them
follow the hillside down to the
river.
The second cup was better; the
first is strong, somewhat bitter
with the taste of rich leaves.
The second – and third – weaker,
its taste more subtle, almost mellow.
We left before the fourth.
The tea was sweet. Green,
it hung in the chipped cup
like a haze waiting to lift.
Sunlight, filtered through a small
copse of dry trees, hit the
tea. The cloud swirled, fragments
of leaf swimming like dust
in a poor river.
There were as many white temples
as there were specks. Against grey
cloud they stuck out like snow;
I watched a line of them
follow the hillside down to the
river.
The second cup was better; the
first is strong, somewhat bitter
with the taste of rich leaves.
The second – and third – weaker,
its taste more subtle, almost mellow.
We left before the fourth.
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
In The Garden
In the Garden
I broke the back of a
statue, a curved thing
stained with air, in the
garden near the glasshouse.
Turned my head
to follow the slope of it,
and the whole dynamic
of the piece collapsed
around me.
Erect, the glint of the
metal brought me back to
the position I was at when,
eager to shift, I lifted my
eye from the steel to the
drifting of dry light; from
a substance to a feeling.
Later, in a square shop
near the harbour I saw a
canvas leaning at the
door. It was a Lowry that
gleamed in the low sun
coming off the sea. The
colour in it reminded me
of the verdigris on the
statue in the garden
which I’d turned my head
from and broken the back of.
[From: From Hepworth's Garden Out, publ. Shearsman Books, 2009
I broke the back of a
statue, a curved thing
stained with air, in the
garden near the glasshouse.
Turned my head
to follow the slope of it,
and the whole dynamic
of the piece collapsed
around me.
Erect, the glint of the
metal brought me back to
the position I was at when,
eager to shift, I lifted my
eye from the steel to the
drifting of dry light; from
a substance to a feeling.
Later, in a square shop
near the harbour I saw a
canvas leaning at the
door. It was a Lowry that
gleamed in the low sun
coming off the sea. The
colour in it reminded me
of the verdigris on the
statue in the garden
which I’d turned my head
from and broken the back of.
[From: From Hepworth's Garden Out, publ. Shearsman Books, 2009
Dazu rock carvings, National Museum of Wales, February 2011
Dazu
The surface pushes, pulls the
beauty from ourselves; we
create the enlightened from
what’s in us. Our cells rub
with the dust with the pity
of soft stone an etiolate ochre
once seen an inch below the
surface of sand on prone beaches.
The face is emotionless; expression
is provided by he or she who sees.
The carvings have never been
touched but by the maker; the
shaker of atoms the re-arranger of
shapes. We creep softly among them.
The surface pushes, pulls the
beauty from ourselves; we
create the enlightened from
what’s in us. Our cells rub
with the dust with the pity
of soft stone an etiolate ochre
once seen an inch below the
surface of sand on prone beaches.
The face is emotionless; expression
is provided by he or she who sees.
The carvings have never been
touched but by the maker; the
shaker of atoms the re-arranger of
shapes. We creep softly among them.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)