the winter was, with blades
of ice
over Hackney Road,
there,
several times, a Chinese opera perfection
you might have lost, later, in the ground of the general,
the blossoming of things
from their stems out, mistaking
for the old winter
the new growth frozen, by a glance too brief
to catch the shift, had we not seen
these lantern pearls,
these sky-blue filigrees
of steel:
walking Sunday from Spitalfields,
, white
wings, all this laddering
of layers: no copper joint holds heaven
here to all that falls, this imprecise
colourfield
of broken walls, near Albion Drive, this purple
skyburst of climbing herbs.
Something like song.
cabbage roses
or the moon.
pollen
in the air.
this also the way home;
& though the boughs are low
and you must crawl,
you
feel the dust. Of itself, you are
dust. Of iron, stars. wherever
where the dust is from:
a fault in the nothing
weighs down the light
love, tell me again, what it is
we know & do not know.
these leaves, since
late September
heaped, are thrown —
love given, against the
chill of this season:
what this place, made bonfire-lit for this occasion
serves between
[ is suddenly shown.
