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THE DESERTS OF THE EIGHTDIRECTIONS
Watching dawn climb a pyramid
or a tessellation of Roman corinthian
pediments enclosing a Libyan temple
outlines a person with more dimensions
than all the numbers available,
yet still not the truth;
even the morning
sun patrols the shore where leopards prowl.
Wedged between Europe and Africa,
enmity lies in wait for the protectors of love,
who collect their possessions from the desert floor
and strap the animals with woven reed to carry thechildren
from the villages, the familiar homes.
This separation from a door recognised
where a bedroom sleeps in disarray
a girl emerges as a lover, quite grown,
reaching for a telephone,
to dial Syrian numbers that arrange,
convene, coincidences that attract her mate.
Do not say she has no wings,
nor love winding its immarbled weight
into lives, that threaten nothing, where sit uneasyfates;
for love avoided, constrains, while love engaged hasno limit.
She lights her fire and picks its flames
and hides them in a room no-one has ever seen.
Salt air funnels from the distant hidden dunes,
hovers and waits.
A thousand salt air miles water spreads,
shimmering, its unfolding wings. It appears England
is a panelled room that hesitates
before the door is opened.
Dressed in claret velvet, smoking a heavy shag,
Conan Doyle stands by the window watching fairies,
the stage carpenter has had the job of sawing offhis wooden legs.
Everything is fake.
Outside in the bright light, air like chrome,
slides across the desert sky whilst over yonder thegreat ocean
waterfalls with stars, its grace unbounded by time,
until ignorance ceases and we wake and watch
loves buoyancy bring boats proceeding from silence.
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