Poem 116

One of the sixty written in three months in 1982 … 12th of November in fact (I put a date on all those poems, only time I ever did that) …

( I love this, the way it piles on images of hesitation confusion and uncertainty, building (or slowing) to a single great suspended moment as if inertia has stopped the very turning of the earth … )

Three Red Buses

We are plagued by doubts
passed like a rumour finger to finger
in the crowd of dark coats
   like sailors
we have set our course
we have ruled our charts a hundred times
in fitful waiting for the wind

the spring turns sour
throwing forth the flower like a clot
a dying cough
the paths under the trees are confused
circuitous the tea leaves
ambiguous nothing to be read
in the cloud entrails
empty sky
    all is primed ready
bowbent to the waiting will
last night there was nothing in the paper
this morning I saw three red buses
straining forward under the yoke
of the traffic light
    everything was still