Mezzaluna. Michele Leggott
takeoff!
The bird-men of Easter Island were egg thieves
and so are we
out in the orchard where the kids hunt what’s left
of the chocolate cache
among the dripping trees
in cold spring
I lie awake before sunrise
even breathing and eyelid curves all around
the crew is dreaming of crabmeat salads and exorbitant lamb
and somehow
a fantasm of island raspberries and double cream gets into the picture
with a flourish of past summerings
and the whiff of a biddable future (is it greed
or appetite
has us out wading the terraces again for the big red crabs
basking on beds of gently waving sea-lettuce
which turns a wistful eye on the great shells
left by the ebb on the bottom of Ella Bay?
a bed of grandaddy clams out there
feasts and delicacies
we come back for
singling out
making sense (and love
of the things
we find
getting hungrier by the moment
or maybe just sure of the victualling stops
I’m happy I’m afraid
Emily’s Sentinel looks out on the sea
and that (improbable) arm has kept the blackbirders out
the depopulators of small paradises
the grid-men with their hands-on madness
who have also covered the Pacific spaces (hold it right there
and might one day come in close (don’t
move a mussel
to make us an offer we can’t refuse
then say
goodbye to the beloved junk the holidays out of cardboard boxes
off weekend crockery
in good company
goodbye to the voyages the small paradises the bellying sail
goodbye and would you let it happen
just catch an early boat and never look back?
Within the month we passed close to the island again
put a glass on the bay and saw
a flag snapping on the whitewood pole of the point
hola!
and the panorama moved right along so that next it was
Roseland’s cabins vanishing
into the leafed-over orchard
so green so sunlit
minimal kinetic glitter in the dancing glass
and the same wind rolling the clouds back off heaven that night
would have shown us the first of ten moons
sliding up over the islands phasing in
the time of our lives
could have told us that love’s growing season
was making another start
a second heart begins to beat
close to the first
Withywind
there will be a story
darkening in the throat
deeper at the edges (now)
wind winds a wound
things we used to do
in this place
not this time
though
winds wind
the traveller returning, welcome
and breath
of hemispheric summers
drudgery the clematis
overlooks
and star wistaria
staring
when you were young,
honeysuckle
there was always
milk
and that
witloose trelliswork
I was busy with
wind
words come so slowly
it has been lonely
a phoenix palm
and behind it
crystalline glitter
another story, waving
plantain paradisiaca a bird
musey with waves
Helicon a harbour cone
here
bright
Greek
over Narrowneck:
head each I am
sweet snow
now
kahili ginger
on a jungle coast
the space junk sails at will
oh hello
think this
into abalone
nacre no body
embraces
acheless or
necklace
wrack free
breaks
reckless
that kissed
detritus whist
forsake and
dance
unsounded
fortune on
wild waves
forsake and
leviathan
never
look back
at the smash
nacreous
deeps
unless
eyes crescent
swimming
ascent
Road Music
Just when you think you’ve made it
out of the bosom
you go back alone
your child asleep in the back
and the road is jammed with ghost Peugeots