Mobile Gift

Tangle of fishing line and square
double-backed mirrors, suspended
from triangle of broken wood,
will never spin and flip light
across lawn or through trees
unless finger and eye unravel.

We rest elbows on chair as blood
drains from vertical arms where
fingers pry holes in knots, push
mirrors through, unwind twists
of line, pull tight one tangle
to loosen elsewhere, lift to let
mirror weights settle through spin
their natural gravity of position,
our fingers touching as they each hold
line or mirror or gap of line or push
mirror through, not rush, not strength,
not flurry of shake, just slow disentangle
of knot and twist, elaborations of touch
manoeuvring the swinging hindrance
of mirrors colliding above their gaps.

Our new cat circles but is ignored.
Time stretches like knots loosened
and sliding apart, as mirrors
are passed through, over, around,
their trailing segments of line
untwisting like our breath
as we pause to rest arm or eye.

One string of glass swings free.
we smile, knowing how rapt patience
will unravel anything in time.

The next two are soon lifted aside,
but the rest whirl their reluctance,
as if endorsing vigilance
the price of ease.

The cat returns from its practise
of stealth and pounce with ball and rug,
coils its scent around our bodies
for attention. We praise her with word
but retain gaze and touch for the next knot
or twist or loop and she abandons us
to this hunting of swinging poise,
where it is not just that threads
have entangled each other, but that
each thread is its own self-contraction
of knots, all victims where severing
may free glass but at cost of design.

With two strings left, mirrors reflect
caution of swift crack at solution,
more disaster here, after effort,
than at beginning of venture.

Then last thread untangles its weave
and we take this suspended invention
to our persimmon tree, watch mirrors
swing their gaze across lawn and garden,
this joy of focusing nothing but light.

The Country Asylum

Combined with time
Tendered autonomy
Two patients lay down
New means of murder

           The clear shark, brute matinee
           Japed a mounting joy of chairs
           Ate down the pale door
           Secured the surly pavement
           His gross clutch of curves

Combined with time
Champions of the blank route
Lowered talons of fear
Their Icarus errors no cure

           Her foul joy, the travesties
           Of deserted angst, the merry show
           Of volleys, the perfume melee of bruises
           The long pipes of terror
           The fumes of condescendence

Combined with time
Lured by solar bonds
Two wailing mazes lay
Down new means of murder

Periphery

You stand at the edge of a mountain gorge, your stance steady as you peer into the tangle of green far below you. There are some trails down there and also on the plateau across from you, but little else to indicate habitation or industry. Far behind you, if you were to face the plains beyond the bluff of rock before which you stand, you would be able to hear distant traffic and see the plumes of dust the tractors, the transports and the tourists make. Here there is only silence and the spiteful wind bending the talents of trees, spending itself against the magnitude of rock. Swaying above all this is a black kite seeking prey or delighting in the beat of air against feather. You watch the bird weave from one end of the gorge to the other, watch another bird rise from some hidden nest, watch them both begin the slow survey of their essential domain.
         You have come to this place to discover the meaning of place. You have come to discover your meaning in place and the evolution of place. Always there is place. Always there are movements through place. Always there is the meeting of boundaries and the hunt along the edge for some crack that will allow you to move beyond, with the hope that finally you will meet no more boundaries.
         It always begins here.
         The birds soar, blur their flight and tumble in a chaos of wings and claws, dying in fall until, close to the frantic tops of trees, they separate, spiral about each other as they rise, and continue their sovereign pursuit of air.
         It always ends here.
         If you do not meet a boundary, how do you know there are none?
         It never ends.

About the Poet
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