Monday 22 November 2010

Perpetual motion


So, here is this month's poem, as promised. Things that we think move are still, if we can catch the stillness. Things that we think are still, move.
... a ballet girl frou-frou'd remain[s] in a brush stroke
Perpetually mobile



Bowl of white hyacinths


I swear that hyacinth dances, and I’m not alas drunk.

I’ve been sitting and watching that bowl’s green lances
Curving and swaying, the curled white heads prancing
Like foam in the breeze from the top of a wave.

You will say – they are still.
Does that stop them from moving?
Don’t you know how

The wind in the corn in a painting can ripple
And shadow with sunlight swing under the trees
Or a ballet girl frou-frou’d remain in a brush stroke
Perpetually mobile?
I say they are dancing, their stillness illusion

– That, drunken or sober, remains my conclusion.



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