Poem 35

Virginia Woolf of course …

( I love the morning like a bright loop … and how it starts and ends with the birds … )

Everything Too Close

She heard the birds speaking in Greek
in the ivy by her window
chanting epics all day
                         when she was
young she sat on the stairs
while her brother explained Greek to her
and Trigonometry and Classics

he died
around her everyone died
like something creeping out from the centre
of a petrie dish
                  she went
to the river her last morning
falling like a bright loop in her hair
everything too close
the stones in the pocket of her cardigan
knocked against her
she put stones in the pockets
of her cardigan
and the birds were singing all down the water
as she leaned forward
to listen