And the ignorant armies, let them eat--beautiful soup

Michael Horovitz

. . . as when, startled to the quick
    by a wraith of fresh air, you let go
your tight fist of keys--for bodies contain no locks they
understand beyond praline, pramsqueaks on afternoonstreets
paved with pate the far grass calls, and each call is answered
rite courteously: listen, this is how
     waterfalls never cease
     fumbling into foam ('til
     finally fiefofumfreed for fun
frolicy fish flicker child-eyed) and darting, as chesnut candle
flame speaks in speartips from the nave of no forest. Demobbed
from early warning messenger rounds, white doves and blackbirds jam
and moult together--deactivating land-mines by jamming them
with feathers, and jamming beaks in jocular upsurge to
full-throated incantation--to conjure back
the dreams of rivers inside clouds; whose burst
orchestra winds shale out first fruit--reborn
renegade artilleries of leafwhisper, stirring
flares of the wild pear . . . the living day
lights     a clearing     for take-off
     every wych-way--flight of the May blossom
or late traces of sticky buds, resins
inform the night, touching on tomorrows'
delicate hailstorms--sprays of Hawthorn and
rosehip bullets, pine cone grenades. spiky mace-encased
satin lucencies of conker--branch-hung fuse of secrets loaded
to such a swelling pitch of close-packed tension
as if by order
                     to be blown
                                        to mortal coils
--even as the roof-rattling battery of cob,
soft-satcheted walnut bombs, velvet moleskinned
nuggets of almond, pile-up of the spoils
of peace
             ordains the reawakening
of new season's promise     in each festive heart
unfolding     to this moment's sun . . .

 

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