Poetry is a promise. Your favourite poem, like a song, is always there to re-visit; it promises permanency amongst so much ephemera. It promises consolation (if that’s what you need) and the promise of relief and above all the promise of a private, silent conversation which takes you to someone, something, someplace, sometimes simply yourself.
Serendipity
There may be a river in South Carolina with this name.
There may be a deer stopping to drink at this river,
at dusk, as other creatures bed down for the night.
The Serendipity River begins in the East and flows
West, the tawny deer lifts her head slow as prayer,
a few beads of water, clear as glass, drip from her
downy lip. An expanse of forest to one side hides
the hunter, the shadow of the hunter, his gun
trembling in his hand like feathers on the quill
someone might use to write to their beloved, telling
of their good fortune, and how serene the river looked
this evening, as he walked to the edge and gazed in,
thinking of her, who he loves. Even the sound of a gun,
startling a few Jays in the pines, had not broken
the moment: the river still eased past, clear as cut glass.
I'm looking at a Sunflower
I'm looking at a Sunflower, lopsided
in a full field of sunflowers. Each
one is a part of the overall plan
of sunflowers. Each one is a seed
in a field full of seeds,
like the skull of black seeds on each
sunflower head. I'm looking
at yellow, and at the wrap of blue
that is sky above each stem. The cape
of shadow over every one.
I'm looking at a painting by Egon Schiele
and there are no people in it,
and I realise that in paintings
by Egon Schiele, which feature people,
he paints women like awkward birds
among slight stalks of full sunflowers,
in a lopsided field. (His wife is a pigeon,
his sister is a crow, all black skull
and lopsided eye, like a seed).
That is how close I am.