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POETRY
Dear, Dear Neruda
Oh love, what can you teach me? With absence,
silent, a time of great longing,
or with presence,
in stillness or with your moving
lips of great speeches. Within your slow dance
you conjur both joy and sadness. In the
depths of driven maddness
with what gladness
would I open the door to receive your wide sea
with wild moonlight glowing
in gardens bestowing
a return to the spring.
I remember your midnight words;
with stealth they loosened the workings
of a young heart. Fire
followed smouldering smoke with flame,
sweet sensations in translation
reached through the darkness to call me by a new name.
Is love a common enough thing for odes?
Despair must show its face as well
among the bode
of ordinary. Who can tell
which comes first? And which remains, sold
at life’s auction, possessed, but not owned.
In coming and going
mercy showing
nothing to the…
