An English November

I stood here beside
this red post
this dog post
I stood here because
I did not want to see the way
the pastor the mirror the four
bevelled corners had used words
however accurate however bronze and fragrant
and I said faint
as in fabled
and you said sullen
as in silken
the way silk falls somewhere in this tented street
this lane again obscured
by moonlight more
vaporous langorous less
suspicious less deliberate than each humming
lamp
cold milk turning
cold each of us humming
fraying mumming I could have told you
but the progression to prayer was not
what you wanted to hear not that night
before the fire
in the grating in the pub the grazing
the green
viridian and oaken walls and glasses glowing
golden within
and without as if time were caught
in the sap of Hennessy slowing
to the tempo of the chair
in the door frame hovering unpainted guarding us from the future
glass within glass within glass
each of us stepping back
to that moment each of us silvery
curtains of filagree
and trees each tree
bowing never failing
whipped by wet wind still
dripping never ending enduring never
lime brushes turning black turning back turning
godly lit into a gilt Constable sky
a telephone a telephone a telephone
burrowing into absence
absence into absence into milky abstinence
quiet into rain into rain
lingering on the other side
of The Four Quartets 17 c.
quadrants of glass sky tree facade reflection
through a glass and a glass darkly she of he of she who had
occupied the sculpted chair the dead chair guarding us from the future
hovering in the door frame
you want me to return why now
sleep lay between us
your blouse
your brown shoes
your Run Lola Run shoes and the mystics
we imagined
into each successive light
only to enter the shadows of one



An English November [#50]
© 2009 Fammerée


* * * * *

Richard Fammerée
fammeree.com
fammeree@att.net
director@universeofpoetry.org


* * * * *

Photograph by Fammerée

* * * * *