Murray Edmond

first
            the light gains
the hawthorn gains.
                        spread out in long green strokes.
                                                I hear her coming,
her feet rising
                                                nearer & nearer
out of the earth.

she does not look back
she is retrieved 
she comes to wake me.

            oak before ash
            we get a splash
            ash before oak
            we get a soak 

soak & splash
splash & soak. 

            I hear her in your lines,
Robert Duncan,
            that 'step at the margin'
the green ripple across the grey scoured face
white stars on black branches
electric ends of the charged twigs
are crackling,
            many small feet
are moving,
            her cheeks
are burning.
            The light
splashes & soaks. 

I look south to the light
where you live
under the white slant of the sun
under the shadowy eaves of board
where the time is sinking
& you are hunched in your green mossy chair 

remembering the surge of leg
on leg expanding as
your thighs spread over
the thrust the ache the thirst.
the colours melt.
            & flood. 

I stretch a leg, a finger, a voice.
The kernel of my eye undarkens.
Her hand is kneading my shoulder
like wind.
            gaining.            Gaining. 

first, the light. 

            now, the hawthorn. 

wandering down the road this early morning
wondering about the shape & size of her new form
I come to a place where the land lowers & twists
& the road follows,
            a sudden corner,
where I break on the gold flares of
Constable,
            Turner & Blake,
& on her full face. 

Mate (May 1975); Big Smoke (2000)

©Murray Edmond

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Last updated 10 July, 2001