Saturday, February 4, 2012


“Ragweed” © Mike
Absalom January 7th 2012.

A white
butterfly trimmed with black fur
sips nectar
from a knapweed crown,
and so
got up you’d think
she’d
dropped into the wrong neighbourhood.
Like a
stray thought,
blown far
from its point of origin,
she
drinks left-handed.

I shall
follow her example.
A visit to the hedge alchemist
and the tide of an old fever
recedes with a slurp,
leaving me wrinkled and happy
as untrodden sand.
Now my eyes will praise the
golden bouquet of the ragweed,
even though the elderberry
tells me
yon buachalán buí is a hag’s poison
and in the wrong mouth
more corrosive than a traveller’s
curse.

Well in the wrong mouth so is
the Bible,
and all the other sacred parchments,
blown in from parched and desert places.
And yet their undulating syllabubs,
whirling like dervishes
and accidentally swallowed in
childhood
have written me to pages more
quickening to my flagging heart
than the shock of the electric
foxglove
or the venom of that small
brown mushroom
that humbly follows the trail
of wild horses
trumpeting through the meadow.

Perhaps
they are all stray thoughts,
blown far
from their point of origin,
dropping
into the wrong neighbourhoods
like
dandelion seeds
to
delight us with their savage beauty.

No comments:

Post a Comment