ANGELA GARDNER


Response
(for Erin)


There is interpreted colour 
- phrases in isolating darkness

a sound caught between water 
or open inchoate shapes of trees.

Nightbirds  - some language other 
sent into darkness by the river.

Here uncontained it sings 
of possession

sweet rolling notes both
sacred and profane. Tidal

brought into consciousness by
a pure liquid movement.

The birds respond 
hold the unlimed twigs

faithfully following -
as if agreed - a chromatic

complicated edge. Point and
counterpoint the singing river.

Downstream the birds
- a final grace note.





The Open Universe

I.


after the restless gods shaped
this Universe.  Meddling fingers
deep in their sensual act.  The wet clay of creating

as you looked at me

discovering those earthly sweet
and salted waters

where we first touched

the pulse of that
my reference point.  My own cepheid variable
reaching a luminosity of meaning

how far we have travelled.

II.


from
what may have been the centre
or when it started
or where it started this time

a relative point

an overwhelming moment of emotion
of energy that flows
outwards
clumping into matter.
uneven sticky trails of it								

this pattern of words
(forgive me) to be read like
Old Light
at some great distance

that recall events from earlier time.


III.


strike out
the neatly circular orbits,
the crystalline and fixed stars,
the singular, miraculous
enclosing geode.
The whole unchanging Universe
so carefully drawn.

Instead a whole skein of stars
escapes.  Above our heads
the open Universe extant.
Beyond enclosure
without fixture
having willingly lost my reasonable senses.