Remains, Print & A roundel
by Jenny Pagdin
[ poetry - january 06 ]
Remains
Like thin splints with the red flames fallen
Through cindered wicks, trees make cold watch,
Black-ice light snags on the barbs.
Wreaths of
frost, still bright on bone,
Enshrine the rabbit’s stricken pelt,
Lungs opening wings on jewelled spine.
Sapphire sinks to the low dark seam
Where intricate wood holds amber dusk
Like fog, above the rain-drenched fields.
Sodden leaves filter
Soft Spring blots.
Overexposed,
Spilled light wells, is fixed.
A roundel
No eye can hold the far-off and the near
In equal sharpness: white-seamed branches wrought
With singed petals, or the open buds, blown sheer,
Converge and are caught.
Under the dabbing morning, berries distort
And dissipate in halos, each dark sphere
A planet ringed with dawn, turns in dark consort.
Vision has its orbit, anthers appear
On bare-ink branches; seasons of song import
Petals and filaments, and with the marching year
Converge and are caught.
