Between (2010)

Most things are considered either/or:
dark/light, now/then, good/bad (we don’t say ‘evil’).
Everything has its place, its little room
in which it sits, waiting till needed.

Of course there are different ways of ‘looking’,
lateral/linear, more opposition,
and the act of seeing is known to affect the seen –
though I’ve never been sure if it affects the seer too.

But I have ever been a lover of twilight,
dawning of day and falling of dusk.
Bright light dazzles and night obscures;
it’s the slow reveal that brings revelation.

So I don’t want to choose ‘either’, I want ‘both’.
Or better still, ‘between’- that acre of land
between the waves’ edge and the sea-wrack cast
high on the shore - now wet, now dry,

a merging of this and that, of here and there;
which can only be ploughed with a ram’s horn
and sown with spicy pepper, to bring forth
unknowable harvests, glistening with salt.

No opposites, no opposition here,
only a constant ever-changing flow
in the slanting, shivering light of dawn-dusk,
and the now-then day-night of a timeless earth.