Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Stephen Watson

THE WIND CHIME

THE WIND CHIME

THE WIND CHIME

There was never any door to it, except by chance
some noon. You look up, glance into a kitchen yard:
a day like any other as summer draws to its close,
but faded like the dunes, dune-hay beyond Kalk Bay,
a sea-wind strengthening all through the morning,
the car-parks along the beaches all of them empty now
but for the municipal trucks, the waste collection;
and the children already three weeks back at school.

There was no key, for you, except a yard like this,
its old cement, swept yesterday, swept again by wind,
the bougainvillaea, its leaves like flesh, leaf-shadow
ripened, black, a shadow-fruit in the noon glitter,
and almost lost within it, scarcely heard at first
against the tidal roar, so huge the weather here –
three notes, silver, tubular: the music of a wind chime
scattering in the sunlight, in one backyard above the sea.

Lost and found, and lost again, the bay behind it
stretching, faded, its blue indifference in the wind –
but this is my philosophy, my poetry, my poverty.
I can offer no more than one chance day
loosened by the weather – the moment of a wind chime
as it comes and goes, swaying in a random air,
its three notes intimate with their own oblivion,
shadowed, even as they shower, by their evanescence.

I can bring only what such things bring
on vanishing: a day, a space still more deserted
than these stalled and vacant suburbs by the sea;
a place where you, again, are granted entry,
here, where there is found what is found now:
that time itself has thickened, its shadow-fruit
this sun, this noon, a wind chime in a sea-wind,
and in your hands, your empty hands, the flesh of time.
Close

THE WIND CHIME

There was never any door to it, except by chance
some noon. You look up, glance into a kitchen yard:
a day like any other as summer draws to its close,
but faded like the dunes, dune-hay beyond Kalk Bay,
a sea-wind strengthening all through the morning,
the car-parks along the beaches all of them empty now
but for the municipal trucks, the waste collection;
and the children already three weeks back at school.

There was no key, for you, except a yard like this,
its old cement, swept yesterday, swept again by wind,
the bougainvillaea, its leaves like flesh, leaf-shadow
ripened, black, a shadow-fruit in the noon glitter,
and almost lost within it, scarcely heard at first
against the tidal roar, so huge the weather here –
three notes, silver, tubular: the music of a wind chime
scattering in the sunlight, in one backyard above the sea.

Lost and found, and lost again, the bay behind it
stretching, faded, its blue indifference in the wind –
but this is my philosophy, my poetry, my poverty.
I can offer no more than one chance day
loosened by the weather – the moment of a wind chime
as it comes and goes, swaying in a random air,
its three notes intimate with their own oblivion,
shadowed, even as they shower, by their evanescence.

I can bring only what such things bring
on vanishing: a day, a space still more deserted
than these stalled and vacant suburbs by the sea;
a place where you, again, are granted entry,
here, where there is found what is found now:
that time itself has thickened, its shadow-fruit
this sun, this noon, a wind chime in a sea-wind,
and in your hands, your empty hands, the flesh of time.

THE WIND CHIME

Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Prins Bernhard cultuurfonds
Lira fonds
Versopolis
J.E. Jurriaanse
Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie
Elise Mathilde Fonds
Stichting Verzameling van Wijngaarden-Boot
Veerhuis
VDM
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère