Graham Lindsay

Cloud silence

 
There has always been
someone

seated
under this tree, looking up

the harbour valley
over rush-studded
paddocks glistening

after rain.
And I'm the first

                           you want to say
you saw the hills

                           it seemed like home
ladders of sunlight leaned
against clouds, then the clouds marched
seaward like ranks of ghost soldiers.
The point is

to stop writing. Stop
using language to protect
yourself from the full

implications of the world — the world says
Look at me, I dare you to
I dare you to see.
                             You tilt your head

back and look up
at the tree.
A ray peers

into the room
of your eye . . . .

                           ^o

Why is our art so introverted?
It doesn't mean a thing

to the seagull or sun
the clouds don't understand
a word

their language is silence
and movement and colour.

Here on the face of it — there
behind a mask. This far
above ground

                        in 360^o cinemas
as the present rolls

From The Subject (Auckland: AUP, 1994)
© Graham Lindsay

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Last updated 23 December, 2003