Tonight

Tonight will be the night
the sea not even whispering
keeping its excitement to itself

it will lift the pier right up high
out of the silent swirl of black water
lift the jokes and bubbling lights

the theatres of cut-out people
the crystal palaces, the roofs so merry with secrets
the pebbles will long to break into crunch

and tonight will be the night
when in dark parks behind the shore
tree-domes will fill with wordless singing

invisible parties in full swing
on the floating pavilions of Cedars of Lebanon.
The stone lion’s eye so heavy with sleep-dust

moonlight will have frozen the dancing and dancing
it will be the night of a thousand and one
nights like this

and it will be the thousandth first night
a window opens to the cool breath of invitation
framing a never-was-young face

peering through the lace of its wrinkles
for the first night again.

My Futures Wheel and Fan like Evening Birds

Beyond the last hairpin I come to a line
of twisted olive trees
they show the devastation of their interminable lives
full-frontally to the road
their patriarchal trunks are split four ways from the roots
and hollowed out
by some grief there’s no more point in hiding.

All eyes they are, begging by the road.
I eye them too
on days like a beggar, cavernous inside,
on those days a caravanserai of life
seems to have passed on by, like a mirage on a wind-plagued desert
and there’s little, there’s nothing to show of it.

But I’ve seen
these ancients go on fruiting
(if you will call their black and bitter berries fruit).
Today blossomsin that time before they fruit
the whole grove, young and old alike, from here is mingling
in a single canopy of flowering
the faint green lace trembles under silver leaves
as the wind pours through.
Buds, flowers, fruit spring out of these ancient ruins
year after year.

The Colour of the Old Man’s Eyes
‘La jeunesse - elle s’en va et revient’

It had taken this to notice
the true colour
of the old man’s eyes

death’s swing doors swinging
gently in the high blue summer room
death laying down the winter of its dun
the colour I’d thought his eyes were

but his eyes were young

stone of azure behind the summer clouds
his eyes were blue
ultramarine in the white caves
of his face, the sea breathing
quietly far away

his eyes were blue
young boundless future
blue