This end of March - a country of the rainbow:
bold arc, horizon wide, footed behind roofs
across dazed streets (forgot their own names),
planted in gardens, strong in red-gold,
subdued in blues.
Wet sheen, sun-balm, raincoat-covered chairs
breeze still in braces (grins metal),
sky, pastel white and blue
yet rain descending from the merest veil
(peeling back the edges of plausibility).
Then, when welkin's a grey lid slid,
the rain holds off!
"Do it your own way, then!" I say.
Birds busy about spring business -
only fat sparrow hears: 'Let me take
this opportunity to remind you
the feeder be refilled.'
'OK.' I do.
Dot-flies traveling Cubist Air.
The blackbird drifts me off and strands me
back three years ago in minor chords, in cords
I find the years have rotted through.
What was it all for? I can't remember now,
thankfully - as if a snake should look
at his own shed skin and wonder
who lived there.
(If each woman kills the man she loves,
the Wife of Bath had a bloody good innings!)
And that old green-knight head of mine -
maple saplings growing through his eyes.
Nothing of him that molders but does endure
a loamy change - how a wilderness
might self-arrange...
in a country of the rainbow.
