In arcane sunlight I sit in a gazebo

on the northern city fringe

contemplating first lines.

Poems are lonely

but necessary at times like this:

they keep me in check

so the day’s colours might

seep into an inventory of hope.

 

*

 

I write poems to know where the hills are,

how the leaves turn before a December storm,

whether light is slanting silver

against that corrugated iron shed

or to describe the desolation

of a sky empty of birds.

 

*

 

Once, I thought poetry and love

were the same but now I’m less sure.

I thought a poem was a way of bouncing

exquisite minutiae from mind to mind

across time zones and calendars,

exploring vistas

for mutual understanding,

the way Emily Bronte might have done

from her cold rock on the moors.

 

*

 

It is 39 degrees.

I wear dark glasses,

drink iced water from a flask,

contemplate endings.

My son phones to tell me he is locked out of the house,

that the dog is barking hysterically,

that he is hot,

has lost his key.

 

*

 

There are subplots in this poem.

Whole chapters.

The morning’s edges are curling.

No one knows

that I am here in this park

except a crow circling in a wide sweep of heat

and the poem I have just given life to.