This is beautiful...
‘I’m rising five’, he said,
‘Not four’, and little coils of hair
Un-clicked themselves upon his head.
His spectacles, brimful of eyes to stare
At me and the meadow, reflected cones of light
Above his toffee-buckled cheeks. He’d been alive
Fifty-six months or perhaps a week more:
not four,
But rising five.
Around him in the field the cells of spring
Bubbled and doubled; buds unbuttoned; shoot
And stem shook out the creases from their frills,
And every tree was swilled with green.
It was the season after blossoming,
Before the forming of the fruit:
not May,
But rising June.
And in the sky
The dust dissected tangential light:
not day,
But rising night;
not now,
But rising soon.
The new buds push the old leaves from the bough.
We drop our youth behind us like a boy 25
Throwing away his toffee-wrappers. We never see the flower,
But only the fruit in the flower; never the fruit,
But only the rot in the fruit. We look for the marriage bed
In the baby’s cradle, we look for the grave in the bed:
not living,
But rising dead.
Amazes me, every time.
