John Kinsella

Side by side

Sanctus, Sanctum: a love poem

i.

The smallest measure of matter
leaves traces before it vanishes:
the energy lost or exchanged
in cycling out to Grantchester
is love and prayer, duotone
landscapes and seasonal osmosis:
we were there, time wound-back
like progress come unstuck,
the largest ever hole in the ozone
layer, defined against the size of America.
A spoonbill larger than life,
mythological on its perch, dégagé –
as it should be, we’d guess.
That’s back there, where we’d
be together if conditions were perfect.
Burnt white totem of the Avon Valley,
as if “sedate order” watches over
communities and is positive
in a way we know it’s not, like the Eloi
being everywhere in the English lyric,
or picnicking by an Australian river.
When the weather goes out of kilter
paragliders over Bakewell
drop as suddenly as they appear:
the spoonbill’s beak’s utility
becomes a rhythmic disaster:
isochronous: stress stress stress:
laneways where moisture clings
and growth meets rot and the cycle
plods its weary way. Holy, holy, holy.

ii.

That fox wrapped around
that roadsign – fashion piece
with flair, cured by the weather,
mummified. The Larrikin is in there.
Jokes about gender. Product
of nationalism, those soft endings,
para-rhymes and racism, bounties
and scalps and making a living.
Who cares? It’s been up there
for weeks. People have seen it,
remarked on it: tasteless,
but then, they hold the hunt
for sheer pleasure and foxes
are despised: “they eat the livers –
livers so small! – out of chickens,
and leave the rest”. Fox spot,
Kentucky Fried Fox, Red Fox,
why the hell not? The ads
fall apart, and that’s what
selling’s all about. There’s no-one
to hear this as I mouth the words,
which reject the page,
the driving by, the twinkle
in the cavernous eyes
of a small head, teeth still shining,
needle sharp.

iii.

A band strikes up a conversation,
and it’s as if I’m there. Let’s ditch
this stuff about centuries, about
Ages of . . . and grand alliances.
It’s global chatter. I love,
I care . . . you know me.
And you know this doesn’t
give life to THEE!
Poetry is a crematorium.
Love doesn’t need it.
The Granta is thick with weed
and smart cars are bunched up
outside Lord Archer’s house . . .
what more do we need?

© 2003, John Kinsella
From: Peripheral Light: Selected and New Poems
Publisher: Fremantles Centre Arts Press, Fremantles