RESISTANCES
1.
each duty commands its own song
this gives it roots in the instant
while I polish while I sew
I give growth to what I do
*
you can hide under the eaves of song
in the same way
the heart of a spring crocus
beats secretly in its green sheath
*
laughter too lends a generous shade
it will be received unquestioned rootless as the wind
*
I am indifferent to objects unless
I can act upon them in stealing
a pair of scissors in concealing
a silver brooch I find something
of what I am
a thin ravaged edge
it is this
which I do not wish to return
*
it is not important that you
find me I dance
from one end of the room to the other
I circle myself
till exhaustion claims me
*
I recast radiance
like a may tree in bloom
2.
because you dig the garden
it doesn’t mean
you don’t think the sky will fall in
it’s only a position like any other
your foot on the fork
its tines smoothing through the earth
*
look at the dark horizon
or wait for the horizon to darken
*
who are my enemies
they have been as an army
will wash over the land
and leave some still digging
the fields red with blood
the turnips good
*
I have found a little shade
beyond here the world burns
you are best to keep silent
no one likes to hear bad news
*
there is nowhere to move on to
from here no I will not pretend
anymore nor let you
3.
home has lost our touch
and so is lost to us
these annual visits
do nothing
but prove the distance travelled
is too great
*
the dressing table the cooking spoon
the light slanting through the window
we are not where they are nor do we
see ourselves in them
*
the world too has lost our touch
so we are the least deceived
the most free to act where we
see flames we will say so
where the world drowns we will not avoid it
*
our own bodies leave us
*
from secret hidey-holes we watch
them hopelessly embracing
their own exile
4.
I watch
while the world punishes itself it gives up
birds to fall from its sky blossoms
to be torn from its trees love
that it may be humiliated
*
the seas rage but they give up
their dead all the same
forests eat light to live on in darkness
*
a tide will dash the limbs
from a crab and still the crab live on
waiting for a gull to find it
*
I lose no more
than the world loses daily the tide
is drawing from it and I am left
a crab spitting on the foreshore
*
understand this my only hope
was to become stone
5.
how many steps in any direction
are to be trusted the answer is three
*
beyond these three
there is an infinite number
of dangers which could befall you
nor beyond three steps
can you trust to your own innocence
*
for both these reasons you take
three steps with a constant mourning
as if you were a tree
with a wind weaving through its branches
*
it is well to know the world
over which you have command
a core where you can stand and say
what happens here is all I know
*
stamp out all other dreams
*
I will let into my world
three things air light
and the trapped sparrow
matron took a brush to
6.
you make a bargain with the world
you say I am not worthy of being on the earth
the world says work
sew polish clean read widely but wisely
*
you make a confession to your husband
you say there are times when I wish you dead
he says work
sew polish clean read widely but wisely
*
in each activity you bless this house
but not yourself in it the river
waits if only you could escape
*
a stranger saves you you sit
on the riverbank to gather your breath
small birds dance on the sandbank
and watch the sea tide coming in
*
you want only one thing
that the world would efface you
7.
to remain yourself deny yourself
*
the world recognises a fire
by its flames rather
think of yourself as a calm sea
that cannot be mapped no one
will wish it harm few will care
what happens under its surface
*
the trick is not to care yourself to live
truly in the negative spaces
she does not even she neither seeks nor -
she never calls upon
*
the world moves with you
in this denial of light as night falls
allow yourself the murmur
of a prayer it is your duty to silence
that ensures you will be heard
*
over the frosted bulbs of the earth
ruins brevity dust
8.
lost soul there is a world
to be part of all it takes is time
*
the accretions you have taken
to be your life did not reach
their ripeness in a day how can you
hope to shed them in so short a time
*
if you embrace your exile
you will surprise yourself at what
can be so quickly lost flesh
anger memory the storehouses
that flamed your life you have bartered
their contents for this tranquillity
*
destitute of volition free as a sea plant
you float with the disinterested tide
*
hold back only a small
mournful cry for the night and determine
that by your shit at least
they will know you
9. CODA
speak for me in a small voice
something indistinct that you might hear
on a forest walk but deep
in the darkness off the track don’t
*
speak with understanding if you do
you’ve misunderstood what I am
*
look at the moon through the branches
there is almost music as the clouds
cover it then let it go
*
that is not the moon I’m looking at
*
neither are you
the one to speak for me not even daring
to raise your voice in the darkness
*
I could tell you things oh
the things I could tell you but again
you would sift them through the grid
of your understanding and then
you would not be speaking for me
*
which is all I ask
this clouded evening that somewhere
in the silence there is someone
who speaks with indifference
in a small voice
for me
