The Voyage: Edited by Chandani Lokuge & David Morley

Cambridge

  Peter Carpenter

  ‘radiant with bovine life’ (E.M. Forster)

  ‘It’s raining but I don’t believe it’s raining’ (G.E. Moore)

  i

  Docks, nettles, self-sown

  sycamores, willows

  thunderstruck by their own

  brilliance, sap-boiled,

  boughs gone scissor-handed.

  The cow is there, now.

  Do not move suddenly

  or she’ll scare.

  Scrutinise the lining

  of flies. First thistles

  then she tongues down a slip

  of overhanging willow.

  She is there.

  ~

  A woman sleeps rough

  by the chained punts, money-spiders

  criss-crossing her back.

  ~

  Attempting steps down

  from Fellows’ Court,

  the poet, grand old man,

  white-haired with stick.

  ~

  The living image of my mother

  whispers to her companion:

  ‘I like walking full stop.’

  High summer’s over.

  The great elms motionless,

  yellow blotches on their leaves.

  I’m there – in the meadow –

  I have proved it to myself.