Out of the Blue (5 page)

Long long I have looked for you,

snowshoeing across the world

across the wild white world

with my heart in my pocket

and my black-greased boots

to keep the cold out,

past cathedrals and pike marshes

I’ve tracked you,

so long I have looked for you.

In your star-blue palace

I wandered and could not find you

in your winter garden

I picked icicles,

my fingers burned on your gate

of freezing iron

I have the pain

of it yet on my palm,

through clanging branches

and black frost-fall

I dared not call

so I slide above worlds of ice

where the fishes kiss

and the drowned farmer

whips on his cart

through bubbles of glass

and his dogs prance

at the tail-end, frozen

with one leg cocked

and their yellow urine

twined in thickets of ice.

I stamp my boot

and the ice booms.

I have looked so long

I am wild and white

as your creatures, I might

be one of your own.

It starts with breaking into the wood

through a wave of chestnut leaves.

I am grey as a spring morning

fat and fuzzy as pussy willow,

all around I feel them simmering

those nests I’ve laid in,

like burst buds, a hurt place

lined for the young who’ve gone

unfledged to the ground.

There they splay, half-eaten

and their parents see nothing

but the one that stays.

This is the weather that cuckoos love:

the breaking of buds,

I am grey in the woods, burgling

the body-heat of birds,

riding the surf of chestnut flowers

on spread feathers.

I love the kiss of a carefully-built nest

in my second of pausing –

this is the way we grow

we cuckoos,

if you think cuckoos never come back

we do. We do.

Where have you been, my little daughter

out in the wild weather?

I have met with a sailor, mother,

he has given me five clubs for juggling

and says I must go with him for ever
.

Oh no, my treasure

you must come in and stay for ever

for you are the butcher's daughter.

Where have you been, my little daughter

in the winter weather?

I have met a man of war, mother,

he has given me four hoops to dance through

and he says I must love him for ever
.

Oh no, my treasure

you must come in and shut the door

for you are the butcher's daughter.

Where have you been, my little daughter,

out in stormy weather?

I have met with a prince, mother,

he has given me three promises

and I must rule his heart for ever
.

Oh no, my treasure

you must give back his promises

for you are the butcher's daughter.

Where have you been, my little daughter

in the wild of the weather?

I have spoken to a wise man, mother,

who gave me knowledge of good and evil

and said I must learn from him for ever
.

Oh no, my treasure

you have no need of his knowledge

for you are the butcher's daughter.

Where have you been, my little, daughter

out in the summer weather?

I have met with a butcher, mother,

and he is sharpening a knife for me

for I am the butcher's daughter
.

The greenfield ghost is not much of a ghost,

it is a ghost of dammed-up streams,

it is a ghost of slow walks home

and sunburn and blackberry stains.

The greenfield ghost is not much of a ghost.

It is the ghost of low-grade land,

it is the ghost of lovers holding hands

on evening strolls out of town.

The greenfield ghost is not much of a ghost.

It is the ghost of mothers at dusk calling,

it is the ghost of children leaving their dens

for safe houses which will cover them.

See this ’un here, this little bone needle,

he belonged to the net menders
.

I heard the crackle in your throat

like fishbone caught there, not words.

And this other ’un, he’s wood, look
,

you said to the radio interviewer

and I couldn’t see the fine-fashioned needle

or the seams on your face,

but I heard the enormous hiss of herring

when they let the tailboard down

and the buyers bargaining

as the tide reached their boots,

I heard the heave of the cart, the herring girls’

laugh as they flashed their knives –

Such lovely voices we all had

you ought t’ have heard us

singing like Gracie Fields

or else out of the hymn book
.

Up to your elbows, you gutted

your pile of herring. The sludge

was silver, got everywhere.

Your hands were fiery and blooded.

from the slash and the tweak and the salt

and the heap of innards for the gulls.

I’d put a little bit o’ bandage round these fingers

–
you can see where they been nicked
,

we had to keep going so quick

we could never wear gloves
.

When I held you up to my cheek you were cold

when I came close to your smile it dissolved,

the paint on your lips was as deep

as the steaming ruby of beetroot soup

but your breath smelled of varnish and pine

and your eyes swivelled away from mine.

When I wanted to open you up

you glowed, dumpy and perfect

smoothing your dozen little selves

like rolls of fat under your apron

and I hadn’t the heart to look at them.

I knew I would be spoiling something.

But when I listened to your heart

I heard the worlds inside of you spinning

like the earth on its axis spinning.

Tall ship hanging out at the horizon

tall ship blistering the horizon

you’ve been there so long

your sheets and decks white

in the sun

what wind whispers you in?

Tall ship creaking at the horizon

your captain long gone

your crew in the cabin

drinking white rum

their breath spiralling

what wind breathes you in?

Tall ship tilting to the shoreline

past Spanish palms

tall ship coming in like a swan

in the midday sun

what wind blows you in?

It is the cool

wind of the morning

stirring my masts

before the sun

burns it to nothing,

they call it

breeze of ghosts
. 

In the goods yard the tracks are unmarked.

Snow lies, the sky is full of it.

Its hush swells in the dark.

Grasped by black ice on black

a massive noise of breathing

fills the tracks;

cold women, ready for departure

smooth their worn skirts

and ice steals through their hands like children

from whose touch they have already been parted.

Now like a summer

the train comes

beating the platform

with its blue wings.

The women stir. They sigh.

Feet slide

warm on a wooden stairway

then a voice calls and

milk drenched with aniseed

drawls on the walk to school.

At last they leave.

Their breathless neighbours

steal from the woods, the barns,

and tender straw

sticks to their palms.

A cow here in the June meadow

where clouds pile, tower above tower.

We lie, buried in sunburn,

our picnic a warm

paper of street tastes,

she like a gold cloud

steps, moony.

Her silky rump dips

into the grasses, buffeting

a mass of seed ready to run off in flower.

We stroll under the elder, smell

wine, trace blackfly along its leaf-veins

then burning and yawning we pile

kisses onto the hot upholstery.

Now evening shivers along the water surface.

The cow, suddenly planted stands – her tender

skin pollened all over –

ready to nudge all night at the cold grasses,

her udder heavily and more heavily swinging.

At Great Neck one Easter

were Scott

Ring Lardner

and Zelda, who sat

neck high in catalogues like reading cards

her hair in curl for

wild stories, applauded.

A drink, two drinks and a kiss.

Scott and Ring both love her –

gold-headed, sky-high Miss

Alabama. (The lioness

with still eyes and no affectations

doesn’t come into this.)

Some visitors said she ought

to do more housework, get herself taught

to cook.

Above all, find some silent occupation

rather than mess up Scott’s vocation.

In France her barriers were simplified.

Her husband developed a work ethic:

film actresses; puritan elegance;

tipped eyes spilling material

like fresh Americas. You see

said Scott     they know about work, like me.

You can’t beat a writer for justifying adultery.

Zelda

always wanted to be a dancer

she said, writhing

among the gentians that smelled of medicine.

A dancer in a sweat lather is not beautiful.

A dancer’s mind can get fixed.

Give me a wooden floor, a practice dress,

a sheet of mirrors and hours of labour

and lie me with my spine to the floor

supple     secure.

She handed these back too

with her gold head and her senses.

She asks for visits. She makes herself hollow

with tears, dropped in the same cup.

Here at the edge of her sensations

there is no chance.

Evening falls on her Montgomery verandah.

No cars come by. Her only visitor

his voice, slender along the telephone wire.

The traffic halted

and for a moment

the broad green avenue

hung like a wave

while a woman crossing

stopped me and said

‘Can you show me my wedding?

– In which church is it going to be held?’

The lorries hooted at her

as she stood there on the island

for her cloak fell back

and under it her legs were bare.

Her hair was dyed blonde

and her sad face deeply tanned.

I asked her ‘What is the name of your husband?’

She wasn’t sure, but she knew his first name was Joe,

she’d met him in Poland

and this was the time for the wedding.

There was a cathedral behind us

and a sign to the centre of the town.

‘I am not an expert on weddings,’

I said, ‘but take that honey-coloured building

which squats on its lawns like a cat –

at least there’s music playing inside it.’

So she ran with her heels tapping

and the long, narrow folds of her cloak falling apart.

A veil on wire flew from her head,

her white figure ducked in the porch and blew out.

But Joe, the Polish man. In the rush of this town

I can’t say whether she even found him

to go up the incense-heavy church beside him

under the bridal weight of her clothes,

or whether he was one of the lorry drivers

to whom her brown, hurrying legs were exposed.