Ars
Poetica
Unable
to sleep, I go downstairs in a strange house
where a dozen uncoordinated clocks
have pendulums that swing back and forth;
hearts of old machinery
that never stop.
Gazing from the window
while
I take deep breaths to calm my chest
I see more in the darkness
than by day: the thickets
by the river, the meadows on the hills beyond them,
the mountains beyond the hills,
and the trees on the mountains. I can see
into the
core of each tree.
Counting their rings
I open my notebook
and as I write their stories
a hundred years pass in a minute,
a forest takes up
half a page.
Moths at Dusk
Into the
warm air of first darkness
at the mouth of a canyon,
from their places on the underside of leaves,
a stream of moths
curls
in a long, smoky line
as the glow behind the rocks
signals the advent of the moon.
They are bookmarks
flying out of volumes that bored their readers,
unread
letters,
pages from old archives
covered with dust,
and each has map
drawn across its wings
of a faraway
country
to which it is drawn. Fire is a language there
and nobody who reaches it
has ever returned. But the moths
keep trying.
With a drop of colour on each wing
they rise,
light as kisses blown
by those they leave behind.
Copyright © 2002 David Chorlton
