Relics

Once the view wrapped all around.
Left and right, front and back,
up and down.
Once limbs of oak stood thick upon the ground,
and forests grew an honest shape
on land untamed.

Our necks would crane to take it in,
the neverending dream of sky
where tiny birds would
stitch their way across the blue
and cumuli would drift and bounce
or feather sweep and fly.

And on and on we’d see.

But now we turn and knock our heads
against a frame of Modern day.
The picture shrinks,
no room to crane as
canvas gasps and cracks and
weak-boned hands attempt
a futile push to stretch
the vista wide.

In time, there’ll be no landscape for the eye –
just fragments in reliquaries and shrines.

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Silence from Sawing

Someone is sawing.
Five or six strides at a time.
The leaves are sitting still.
A pigeon fatly perches, beak buried.
Coo, coooo, coo – cu-cu.
Mellow light glows on the wooden arbor.
Pipes click, metal breathes in – breathes out.

The sawing stops, clicking stops, birds are quiet.
For that brief, yet pillowy moment,
there is perfect peace.
I inhale the silence.
Let it fill my lungs, my stomach, my head
and I float in its air.
Aware of everything,
yet untouched by sensations,
held apart from the solidity of nouns.
I will the moment to stretch
as I gaze out of my dust flecked window.

A bird flaps in the distance.
As it turns, the sunlight
swallows its shape and it
is absorbed by the pale blue sky.
Now you see it, now you don’t.
The honey light moves and fades
as wood and fence lose their place,
no longer centre stage,
relegated to the shadow wings
Of my garden.

The bubble bursts.
Someone is sawing.