The Dark Trees

The Dark Trees

The Dark Trees

Leave your house, rise
from the table
where the candles have guttered
and a blue light
through the shutters
creeps over the fishbones and the broken bread,

go out
under the dark trees
to where the boat
lies waiting by the rock,

pull it
across the grey sand to the water’s edge
and push
out over the glistening bay.

As you row
along the bright path that the moon has made,
think
that the soft light of the moon
has entered everything,

that somewhere
far beneath you
a sunken boat
lies waiting by a rock,

that all around
the dark trees of the coral and the weed
bend gently
as the cold winds through them,

that fish
the colour
of moonlight
drift all night through their branches.