Unrecallable Now

(after Roddy Lumsden)

 

 

Since you ask, this was how I stayed awake.

I imagined a stand of trees

growing tall, white trunks

curling like ribbons

up to the polished shell of our sky.

 

Better than that, I was a door

in the sand opening into pipeworks of earth.

Did I mention that when shadows

of fish darted past, I held on,

till they slipped through my fingers?

 

But mostly I thought of those two:

a couple of crofts losing heat

in a darkening evening. How one

faced out to the lough, and the other,

the town, over acres of fields.

 

They must, as we must, have the sting

of sleet; a mad experiment

on the roofs, pinging rockpools,

cattle;  biting the faces of chancers

on  the high road from the pub.

 

I thought of those two; then ribbons

of fish brushing my hands; trees gaining heat;

a light in a window, as eloquent

as Venus. The witchery of sleet. Rain

curled up in the pale shell of sleep.