#511 the path where feet have fallen (notes and fragments towards...)

 

26.v.21

511

2.143

the path where feet have fallen

notes and fragments towards

common or garden poets

in the rough order in which they come/came

 

 

we have lived for it and do

certain firstnesses and light

(poetry I mean)

 

all infinitely neighbouring

nothing one

but thing’s another

 

there’s the bush in the garden

in the bush because

a lovely fire-wreck, stillness

 

often drift into

as on the way to letterbox

squat or standing to ablution

 

thing to other led

gone nameless in the garden

commonly we breathe

 

the wooded poem

in creature pants

take in and make the rose detour

 

know six weeks till next

give, take

pure stream running rain

 

was a path

frost dawn

and the too bright shine

 

here we breeze off industry

here overgrow the road

call to the garden

 

was all along

and whether you whistle

here’s bath for the birds

 

fresh palette, vine rise

these are the everyday home

this is a stretch and bend

 

call it best we can do

in way of obeisance

fly taken in, spider on the ropes

 

this is a slap up garden

head so full – a heartsup

(hide fragments from a tune)

 

batter down

my cliché come to kingdom

will of whom?

 

there’s so much bearing off

we’re full of poem there

and royally alone

 

where  all the joys of being sing

like?  well, there’s nothing like at all

it’s not where colour’s from

 

but we collaborate to canvas

catch here and tame the sky to tricks

ladder up a soil

 

the path where feet have fallen

a cello midst and ping pong too

forget one part to favour other

 

and shall we go unnoticed here?

you know where

tree is a book - will we read?

 

it’s dreamwork!

no way else to come

you could hardly call us a movement

 

when nobody’s at home

invisible things are all that we see

this is us led up the garden path

 

hopelessly lit

come to such wonders as day does

and all for one

 

will we name the flower now?

best not

the flower already knows

 

.

 

the fragment breaks off here

where the poem has overgrown

self and un-self, a pas de deux

 

peace everywhere

still undeclared

watch now where night was

 

nothing muscular but the usual risks

by absence of time

we trick

 

storms take and drought

here, there everywhere

winter to lost limbs –

 

bonfire for a vanity

and taste these falls of fruit

here’s Marvell’s mower

 

Herrick’s crew

Dickinson’s frog all sit

only by dreaming that any have come

 

these are the feet fell to a path

it’s for the love of this

tools left rust

 

nothing precious

post bloom, prune

nor can you afford –

 

the time, attention, trust  

alfresco (bung mustard of a barbeque)

the garden comes indoors

 

say lemon to the table

this much utterance abandoned

an unexpected shower

 

by trowel and lug

try not to spray

often bury

 

much less dig

anyone is mulch

and we expand – new beds

 

and there are seasonal retreats

(not that there’s one ever repeated)

of course of course

 

we’re still building out there

these poems

are only a draft