Sounding

sky holds its light
in the directions of a storm
wind flicks the day
in not-yet direction

the sea is opposite
to what you know

this isn’t sound
like your own sound,
you hear more clearly
if not directly

like weather, it’s something
of the general
ground, we can talk
about it, what it’s like,

appearance, mimic, as
birds, as wind sounds
like rain, like sea
in the night of similar
latitudes

 
Co-ordinates

The future hasn’t decided
if it’s a holiday, a lawn mower
prowls the periphery
so work goes on, at maps
in suitcases, with plans,
dead-headed flowers in
a wheelbarrow, the kids’
pyjamas on the rusty hoist,
all co-ordinates such as
nadir, perihelion, or
‘take the first right
past the second gate’

Wind percussion
of palm leaves sounds unforced,
though force, mass, energy
can’t be so laid back.

My energy is relative
to years, attitudes,
all so much work
translating sound into a line
or sight into the continuous
movie the present sends
a future from another debatable past,
smelling in this moment
like an ancient malleable garden,
perfumed loam.

Misplaced

Sometimes the poem is
out of order
or in the other air
when it is hotter
placed after before
in the evening.
The moon shines on
the day, the sun
sinks elsewhere
and the page is lit
by the evening star
which was not lost
even after all
those blanket years,
city lights, summer snow
and the return
of the albatross
gliding within storms
as the southern ocean
tosses its spray
onto ropes, canvas
the rocks, the mainland
rearranging the page.

first published in ‘322 Review’

©Jill Jones