Poem 83

Another poem with an epigraph … I can remember reading this to our little poetry group of Jenny Bornholdt, Rodnie Derrett, Emilie Dear, David Geary and myself in the library of Drama Studies in Fairlie Terrace … David had just broken up with Juliet who by complete chance came to the door while we were reading … so this poem especially resonated with him …

( waste and empty the sea is from Tristan and Isolde by way of Eliot’s The Wasteland … )

Season Of Apartness

"Since I've loved you solitude begins two steps away from you"  
							Ondine, Jean Giraudoux


 … and the third step
is a kind of beauty
the kind the tower
confers on the lady

in the tale a rider
in the impenetrable forest
stepping through seasons
of apartness

waste and empty the sea
and perfect like that
nothing
beyond the tent

of our ten senses
we leave behind withdrawing
only this sad dream
receding before waking

when the ring of our arms
is broken
the planet drops the dance
we dragged it into

I am tipped out
upended
into a night
full of stars

cold crackling me into beauty
freezing shut eyes
no longer yours
or mine