IV
Before your work
you sit, so still
as in a painting
by Hammershøi
(Isa’s hair,
so like your own).
Beyond the desk,
the bay window
stretches your gaze
to the fox-frequented garden,
the hedged less-leaved beech,
the un-blossomed pear.
Now, in the mind’s eye,
your son, your daughter
bed-bound in a doorway:
(a tender moment witnessed)
then the silent grace,
the shared meal.
V
Night falls
and done for the day
the violins unravel.
Only on a brittle guitar,
a Prelude:
Subtle Mysteries of Sleep.
As you close your eyes
tomorrow beckons (in a list),
and thinking backwards:
the nettle soup tale;
a birthday cake adventure;
breakfast on the patio with sunshine.
Premonitions? Perhaps.
But in yesterday’s paper
a shock of poetry,
plants the seeds of blank verse -
no pointers given
(save these folded words).
VI
That evening
I asked the questions,
and later you said:
‘If I’d not wanted to tell you
I wouldn’t have’.
I’d already guessed. I knew.
out in the garden
a sunny day
skuddering clouds
white as the blossom
left and loose
leaving lightness
That evening,
as the minutes
ticked away,
I seemed at last
to see you entire,
even your quiet hands.
Oct 27, 2012
Oct 27, 2012 at 11:26 PM UTC
IV
Before your work
you sit, so still
as in a painting
by Hammershøi
(Isa’s hair,
so like your own).
Beyond the desk,
the bay window
stretches your gaze
to the fox-frequented garden,
the hedged less-leaved beech,
the un-blossomed pear.
Now, in the mind’s eye,
your son, your daughter
bed-bound in a doorway:
(a tender moment witnessed)
then the silent grace,
the shared meal.
V
Night falls
and done for the day
the violins unravel.
Only on a brittle guitar,
a Prelude:
Subtle Mysteries of Sleep.
As you close your eyes
tomorrow beckons (in a list),
and thinking backwards:
the nettle soup tale;
a birthday cake adventure;
breakfast on the patio with sunshine.
Premonitions? Perhaps.
But in yesterday’s paper
a shock of poetry,
plants the seeds of blank verse -
no pointers given
(save these folded words).
VI
That evening
I asked the questions,
and later you said:
‘If I’d not wanted to tell you
I wouldn’t have’.
I’d already guessed. I knew.
out in the garden
a sunny day
skuddering clouds
white as the blossom
left and loose
leaving lightness
That evening,
as the minutes
ticked away,
I seemed at last
to see you entire,
even your quiet hands.
The Origami Letters is a sequence of 27 poems and an afterword.
Request permission to use this poem