Wayfarer after dawn in forests of fog
(air misting but not raining) rest awhile
against this post
so cold the metal breathing crystal pores,
slow-fed vacancies pulsing glacial life
THERE IS NO POINT OF PURE STILLNESS
Ice, palely flat sky, mobius strip round
and round
is all incipience
of life
Intensities flummox the teeming earth,
meanwhile penumbra ebb and flow (the pace
of shade is quick)
But
hasten to the copse
frost-forest thicket plural with yew veins
*
Crooked and free
the road that wanders out of sight,
beauty of not-yets
nested fragilely
for all or none
In time
unburden the air—air
that wants this wanting, less and more than whole
Wonder,
is need your need alone?
Whether
EVERYTHING THAT LIVES LIVES NOT ALONE?
Nearby voices re-ravel addled thoughts
in quickening deluge to burst the bank,
perturbs mudlarker’s jaunt
(young bowerbird)
Diamond-ring flotsam,
old clay-pipe jetsam
all flows into the fold
of liquid flux
Attend to the little ones,
heed well their times—
loud whir of wings,
or silent stone,
or emmet’s inch
or eagle’s mile
Our motley paces
weirdly tread
*
STOP IS UNREAL;
each particular a plexus
unsung world of delight
December shivers on
and for all of an instant
the thrill in the skin knows
a flash of pale sky through canopies
the shafting sun of other months
to be equally radiant
(apparitional
as riverbank garnets
blown into thousands
finally irretrievable)
*
Petrific hapax
fancies itself a monad
divided phantom
of a split-second vacuum
and cresting ice wants to outwit onrush
desiring permanence,
once and for all
Industrious multiply each moment;
there is no royal road to easy rest
Dig in the heels
dig up the shards
ice spray
loosed from the cut mouth of the chill river
estuary;
skin flinch, fluttering heart
or vital sign—aliveness craves those climes
Where is the traveller’s journey done?
*
Fear: eternity
clod of clay
or redwing’s nest
or circinate of fern
or diamond eye of silver birch
AT WILL CONTRACTING INTO WORMS, OR
EXPANDING INTO GODS
Know this: you were the one
irreducible
and still to know thyself or god or worm
to scale the eagle’s heights or mole’s abodes
unspool futurity in perfect words
a human awful wonder of god
*
In regions slow with care unfurl these wants
these grievous harms
ignite the painter’s eye
suffuse with meaning fingernails or scarves—
the forms of former times
and soon the pain
becomes élan invents inventive life
Meanwhile we all rethunder on the banks,
hear murk intoning what you can’t believe
What did that dawn-dream mean?
It passed too soon
Why can’t spondaic breath remember it?
The pulse
the rush imaginal
the kill
and thud of march thrown down upon the chalk-
pit slope he cries for healing,
head in hands,
to leaden any hope of once-dreamt love
(Yet stirs this kindness:
a song of whiteflies glorying in vetch)
In infant joy
I’ll cleanse the grit
and suck out splinters from the rutted palm
till, sapling-skinned and burnished,
you arise
*
New road is brackened cool
(low rustle,
susurrus)
eclogue untouched by civic cares,
or so it seems
Idling catches its breath,
and our thoughts are all
of kind caress,
cataractic warmth,
or slumbrous rest
Still, need is fickle
won’t be nullified
nor satisfied,
won’t stand still enough,
long enough
nor tumble from the peak—
sovereign erroneous!
Cruel winter pauses.
There’ll be time enough
for slumber,
only mind these fading twixt-light hours
crepuscular quantities
go not unheeded
In time make haste downriver,
but be sure to pause
where alder trees
cut ribbons from the still-
purple sky
Caroline Anjali Ritchie is an Australian-born, London-dwelling writer and researcher. She is currently completing a PhD on the poetry and art of William Blake. Her poetry explores the relationship between language, nature, and the human mind, often with an emphasis on mental health.
