A poem about being connected, about how every action provokes another.
The poem became clearer as I wrote it. I had the first two lines and then the next two until I had the rough shape of the poem on the page. Sometimes you don't know what the poem wants to say until you've got it all down. It's important to listen and give it time to say all it needs to.
She was a sailor
who
had sailed to the moon,
or
at least the equivalent distance,
ploughing
a path, turbulent or smooth,
between
two fixed points
and
back again as the globe turned
and
the galaxy described a complex figure
around
a super massive black hole.
She
was more concerned
with
the intricacies of internal combustion,
the
sequence of timed explosions of pressurised diesel,
that
shoved one piston down
and
another up to complete the cycle,
excreting,
almost as an after thought,
tons
of carbon dioxide and particulates
to
contribute what they could to melting the icecaps,
altering
the climate and promoting
asthma
in random people around the globe.
One
against the clock morning scramble,
her
retirement made the news,
as
I searched for my inhaler.
It was not difficult to write but it took time to find the poem's shape. It feels half completed. I need to put it away for a while and come back to it.
A friend sent me a Jamie Stillway cd this week and what a treat it was.
Enjoy.
No comments:
Post a Comment