and introduce themselves.
But they must have disembarked already,
and I soon forgot them.
I was concentrating now on the icebergs
as they sailed past my window.
The icebergs, and the whales
that always let fly with a water-spout
before they bent below the surface.
The Fish in Australia
Where the mountains crumbled
and yellow desert began,
when the sun began to smoulder
in a vault of indigo,
I left the metalled road
and found a perfect circle
of still and silent water
fifty yards across,
with hard treeless banks
unmarked by any prints.
Call it a pool of tears
wept by dogs and kangaroos,
or dead transported men.
I considered it a dew pond
but no dew anywhere
ever fell that swarthy colour,
or seemed so like the lid
of a tunnel piercing through
the planet’s fiery heart
to the other side and England.
Providence anyhow
had made me think ahead
and without a moment’s pause
I was parked up on the bank,
had my rod and spinner ready,
and was flicking out a cast
to find what rose to me.
Nothing rose of course.
A kookaburra guffawed
a mile off in the bush
and a million years ago;
a snack of tiny flies
sizzled round my lips;
and as the dying sun
sank deeper in its vault
a gang of eucalypts
in tattered party dresses
seemed to shuffle closer
and show their interest
in hearing how my line
whispered on the water
(now uniformly solid
ancient beaten bronze)
how the reel’s neat click
made the spinner plonk down,
how the ratchet whirred
as I reeled in slow enough
to conjure up the monster
that surely slept below.
As I reeled in slow enough
then suddenly too slow
and the whirling hooks caught hold
of something obstinate.
Not flesh or fish-mouth though.
Too much dead weight for that.
A stone-age log perhaps.
A mass at any rate
that would not change its mind
and snapped the flimsy line
which blew back in my face
as light as human hair.
If not myself at least
the pond lay peaceful then,
with sun now turned to dust
and a moon-ghost in its place
as much like company
as anything complete.
Why not, I thought,
why not
despite the loss to me
continue standing here
and still cast out my line,
my frail and useless lash,
with no better reason now
than to watch the thing lie down
then lift and lie again,
until such time arrives
as the dark that swallowed up
the sky has swallowed me.
Swim
We quarrelled over something
I don’t remember
and while you slept
I tried to make good
by mending a broken pipe
under the bathroom sink.
When I hit my head on the rim
I decided to hell with it
I’ll spend the afternoon
taking a swim
instead.
And why not
prove myself
capable after all
by ploughing across the harbour
and back?
Given that meant a mile
and all manner of shipping
including a liner
recently in from Barcelona
I had to strip off and go
before I finished the question.
Breast-stroke
crawl
breast-stroke
then for a while
floating
getting my breath back
until the liner
set sail for Barcelona again
which kept me treading water
as long as the beast
swung from the dockside
out
surprisingly quick and yet
slow
sloshing an oily ripple
over my head as a joke
before
looming above me
capped with faces shouting
Look out!
or
Look!
I was still treading water
treading
water but thinking
it will be time soon
to kick myself forward again
what with the liner
sliding away from me now
juggling the world in its wake
this way and that then
shouldering off
through the harbour mouth.
Achille Lauro
that was the name I saw.
Achille Lauro.
Wasn’t it
captured by hijackers once
didn’t they
shoot what was his name
Klinghoffer
then tip him overboard
out of his wheelchair?
I could return to that I would
later return to that but now
I was halfway across only
halfway across the harbour
legs suddenly stringy
breath
short
and still still a good way
from starting the journey back.
What had I ever been thinking?
What had I
not been thinking?
You I thought
you will never need know
not if you
never wake up.
It could be still
an afternoon like the others
the lazy others we spend
here on the island
in Caprichosa in Cala Rata.
I might really
I might not remember
how the enormous water
opened beneath me
how
a liner
had easily slipped straight over
and through
how I swam onwards a little
rested
then swam onwards again
until it was all
behind me
all the silvery harbour
catching the light of late afternoon
and I was back here in our bedroom again
still lying beside you.
The Burning Car
Back from our swim in Es Grau
where nightingales
sang from the pines
and a heron
ignored us priest
at his priestlike task
in the freshwater pool
in Es Grau as I say
the car caught fire.
A jalopy
but still on fire
a smudge
escaping the bonnet
then feathers
the instrument panel
then flame
the air-vents
the radio glovebox
the key in its slot
and out
we jumped out
in the sun
mesmerised though
you could say mesmerised
yes
or baffled.
What did the unive
rse need
to explain?
Did it think
we were stupid?
Well
we might have been stupid
or worse
but at least
we were taking no chances
keeping our distance
watching the tyres
take hold
the windscreen
explode
then fire in a hurry
guzzling
our damp front seats the basket
my towel
your red one headrests
umbrella
our map of the island sea holly
sweet wrappers
lolly sticks sand grains
dust dust
and your favourite hat
darling that too
amazing how fast
how soon
in something we thought
could never be burned
a car
but was.
The Notary
For some reason
were you
selling your apartment
for some reason
we needed a notary
so we uncoupled
and set about finding one.
The first step
brought us down to the coast
as morning broke over Ravello
through a comedy of hairpins
with our windows one minute
scratched by savage brambles
the next lit
with a flash of the sea.
But the notaries of Amalfi
were closed
or spoke no English
so on a second bus
we followed the coast road to Salerno
still with a good idea
we might find what we wanted.
But the whole morning was now
beauty thinning away
vine terraces and marble stairs
veering
among lavender rocks
and the other tourists
disappearing as well
dropping off
at the good bathing spots
or the last restaurant
anyone had heard of
until it was just us
and the other silent ones
who needed Salerno
for their own business.
No one acknowledged us
and
everyone followed the view
religiously
the mountains to our left
with profiles of old warriors
and patchworks of myrtle
gradually shrinking
as the pulses of lava that made them
lost their vitality
the sea to our right
sprinkled with white fishing boats
furrowed by one blue ferry
and whipped briefly by a helicopter
that buzzed alongside us for half a mile
as if we were under surveillance
or heading for danger.
Then the sky was empty again
the road ahead straight and flat
and the music of our tyres
playing over soft tarmac
the sunlight zithering through the blinds
the heat scented with petrol fumes
that swept in
through open windows
were all peaceful enough
all sleepy-making enough …
One minute there was no Salerno
the next there were dockyards
a port suburbs a ring-road
a hideous ramshackle overpass
marina bridge dual carriageway
the Centro with its wide avenue of pines
and everything soaked through
with a faint sour yellow
version of
colour-blindness.
We stepped down
at the last stop before the depot
and silence swallowed us like a marsh.
As it had swallowed already
the first notary we tried
and the next
and the next
all
at a tiresome distance
from one another
on long streets flanked
with glaring concrete
where apart from a vagrant
asleep on the veiny steps of a bank
and a three-legged dog
that made a point
of hopping along
the dead-centre of the road
we saw no signs of life.
The cathedral.
Also locked.
Then tuna salad and Peroni
in a shaded courtyard
with three metal tables.
At one
a white cat slept in the only chair.
At the second
a handsome Capuchin friar
in brown habit and sandals
took extremely careful sips of water
while a woman much younger than himself
leaned forward and murmured earnestly
without a single interruption.
The friar
sometimes nodded
and took another sip of water.
At a different time
at the third table
we might have felt exhausted.
Here we were reconciled.
Perfectly content
with each other which made us
content as well with the confusion of things
that had brought us here
and spared us.
We finished our meal.
We wandered off
and found our way
to the dusty corner where
our bus appeared like a miracle.
With the sun behind us now
and hills darkening as they swelled
towards the mouth of their dead volcano
and small fires
unless they were spirals of mist
twisting up from the valley floors
we saw our own shadow
crumpling against the corners
long before we reached them
and the distance to travel seemed much shorter
The Mill
Over the road
and twice the size of the house we lived in
five stories at least
white clapboard
wide as a barn.
The cat reconnoitred.
I followed the cat
clambering
this side or that
of the mounting-block steps
then ducking the sack
that drooped like a sleepy eye
almost to block the door
and in.
Darkness.
Light.
Shadows that
jigged with bran-dust
and wheat-dust
and softened the pulleys
the beams
the ladder fading away
towards this attic or that
where the miller must be
ignoring me
on my porridgy floor.
And hushed.
But roaring in fact
the dry
continual
biblical
thunder
of mill-wheels
grinding together.
Surely
the heaviest weight in the world.
Furious too
with a fury of infinite patience.
Where was I now?
I’d forgotten.
No no I remembered.
Looking for something
I was
like the cat looking
here between rows
and rows of comfortable sacks
like soldiers asleep.
Looking for this
perhaps
this handful of grain in a gush
overfl
owing my hands
at a rickety funnel
like money but free
and precious priceless
if only I caught it.
Maybe not this.
Maybe just wanting
the doorway again
what with the weight at my back
the weight
and darkness
breathing and grinding.
Look.
Was that really my home there
over the road?
That acacia tree by the gate.
That border of pinks.
My mother’s face in a window pane
like a bubble
frozen in water.
Surely again
surely
surely not mine.
Besides
I had turned into dust.
White hands
white clothes
white hair.
And next thing would float away
through the white air.
Wait
When prayers are over
I lie in the dark
I wait
my mother here
on the slippery eiderdown
her
one hand smoothing my hair
the other
breathing Blue Fern
from a wet dot on her wrist
and it is time
she says it is time to explain
miracles really
are not
listen
the Burning Bush
it had oily leaves
the Red Sea that was
the tides yes
and Jesus Jesus
walking across the water
ah
but I know about that
already I know because
I have fooled my father
already
I have discovered
this sandbar lying
just under the surface
all invisible
and
I have walked it already
anyway
wait
wasn’t that now downstairs
my father
home before we expected
me and my mother
clearing his throat
lifting up lids on the stove
yes and always the same
with him with him
it is always time