David Malouf - Earth Hour

creatures, bear, lion, swan, who share with us the upland

fells and meadow-flats of a rogue planet tossed

into space and by wild haphazard or amazing

grace sent spinning. Old consolations, only half

believed in, though like children we hold them dear, as if their names

on our tongue could bring them close and make,

like theirs, the bitter sweet-stuff of our story

to someone, somewhere out there,

remembered, and fondly, when we are gone.

Childhood visitors,

the surprise of

their presence a kind of grace.

Kindest of all the ladybird,

neither lady

(unless like so much else

in those days disguised

in a witch’s spell) nor

bird but an amber-beadlike

jewel that pinned itself

to our breast; a reward for

some good deed we did not

know we’d done, or earnest

of a good world’s good will

towards us. Ladybird, ladybird,

fly away home, we sang,

our full hearts lifted

by all that was best

in us, pity for what

like us was small (but why

was her house on fire?), and sped her

on her way with the same breath

we used to snuff out birthdays

on a cake, the break and flare

of her wings the flame that leapt

from the match, snug

in its box, snug in our fist under the house

that out of hand went sprinting

up stairwells, and stamped and roared

about us. Ladybird,

mother, quick, fly

home! The house, our hair, everything close

and dear, even the air,

is burning! In our hands

(we had no warning

of this) the world is alive and dangerous.

Touching the Earth

The season when all is scrabble,

and surge and disintegration: worms

in their black café a pinchgut Versailles rabble

remaking the earth, processing tea-bags, vegetable scraps, and hot

from the press news of the underworld, the fast lane,

to slow food for the planet.

Plum-blossom, briar rose,

commingling. Overhead pure flow, a commodious blue fine-brushed with cirrus.

In our part of the world we call this

Spring. Elsewhere it happens other

— wise and in other words, or with no words

at all under fin-shaped palm-frond and fern in greenhouse weather.

But here we call it Spring, when a young man’s fancy turns,

fitfully, lightly, to idling in the sun,

to touching in the dark. And the old man’s?

To worms in their garden box; stepping aside

a moment in a poem that will remember,

fitfully, who made it and the discord

and stammer, and change of heart and catch of breath

it sprang from. A bending down

lightly to touch the earth.

The Spell

Needlepoints of light

rain pick out a web and I am caught. The garden,

its double iron-barred gate

and the prunus pushing out

on its own path under paving-stones, floats free

and trembles. It might be gravity suspended,

or an odd angle

of time that a slight glance sideways

catches so that the whole

enterprise unsteadies, no longer instant

underfoot. What centres it,

when all has been riddled through

and questioned, is the spider, dark

death’s head paramour and spell

— binder. Ablaze

in solar isolation,

it dwindles at the end of its span, its spittle-thread

of inner fire unravelled

in a riot of marigolds, and the spell so light

on the senses yet so strong,

and still unbroken.

After

I bend to it willingly, this patch

of earth and its green things, in their own world

(though I hold the title to it) hungry for life

and tenure. Here they are weeds to be uprooted:

a limited easy task, the damp and crumble

I’ve lived with since my first

mouthful of it, the peck

of dirt I’m still working through. All round, a suntrap,

the garden-glitter of webs. Tree

— spiders that like the weeds, our late-spring sunlight

colluding, would choke

the lot to keep their hold. Live and let live? Not yet, not

here. Inside, the phone

intrudes. Another world calls and I scurry

in, struck by the coolness of a place that is all surface

polish and appliance. Too late! The message,

if there is one, hangs

in the silence, in the air

of abeyance that attends

on hasty departure: the breathless hush, lightly expectant,

of After.

A picture-book street with pop-up gardens, asphalt

bleached to take us down a degree or two

when summer strips and swelters. All things green,

wood sorrel, dandelion, in this urban village

salad not weeds, and food for everyone, including

rats and the phantom night-thieves who with barrow

and spade tip-toe in under the windchimes to cart off virtual

orchards of kaffir limes. Good citizens all

of Chippendale and a planet sore of body

and soul that needs saving, and by more

than faith-healing or grace — good works and elbow

grease, a back set to it, compost bins,

the soy of human kindness. In the late splendour

of early daylight saving, stars regroup

for breakthrough, mynah and honey-eater tuck

their head under a wing, ants at shiftwork

in their gulag conurbations soldier on; and hunters, clean

of hand and clear of conscience, down

tools, troop home to pork-chop plastic packs, and gatherers

gather for hugs and mugs of steaming chai.

The planet, saved for another day, stokes up

its slow-burning gases and toxic dust, gold rift and scarlet

gash that take our breath away; a world at its interminable

show of holy dying. And we go with it, the old

gatherer and hunter. To its gaudy-day, though the contribution

is small, adding our handsel of warm clay.

A Ground Thrush,

the latest of many such

occasional companions,

is scribbling the dusk

with its signature

tune, a high five

sol-fa-sol-fa-doh, at each

da capo plainly astonished

by its own sufficiency.

I stand and listen,

happy to yield

the day, the scene, the privilege of being

the one here who will embellish

the hour with all it needs, beyond

silence, of manifesto. Which

the land, as it breathes out warm night

odours and settles,

takes as an usher’s

aside on the sublime.

A footnote, Eine Kleine Background Music,

to its blindfold, trancelike

descent into the dark

to bring back

tomorrow.

A listening post

in an open field,

a green message tower,

each filament and pad precision

— designed to pick up

what the four

winds and their attendant

weathers pour in,

on the senses, on the skin.

We catch

at a remove what passes

between packed leaves and Heaven’s

breath as the big sky

story blows through

the gaps in conversations,

caught without

shelter like Poor Tom

under the wet lick and whiplash

of the metaphysical dark.

Hunkered down

in the raw, a-shiver between

on the one side a mad

king who weeps and blusters,

on the other his Fool

who wisecracks and mocks,

he grits his teeth,

hugs himself

to keep warm, and privy to all,

illustrious nosebleeds, the heigh-ho

Dobbin and full cry

of the great world’s

hiccups and fuck-ups, says

nowt, sits out the storm.