By Christian McKenna.
I. The Shore
The briars listened
Like the whitewash river hiding its ford
And the golden bog plants
Hiding in their dream-bawn
Their jelly and their pools
And their time-dense media.
The compendium of starry nights
The endless glut of a bog.
Where logs skitter with frogs
and reform.
Where magpies are captured in pools
like photographs.
The star-is-cold orchard.
Clams of silver light open
Bejewel the stuffy air.
Insects unsteady with pollen luggage,
And mono-colour flies, blue and green
candies.
Twilight on a shore of javelins.
II. Gaining entrance
Star-cutters. Ursa Major
denatured, sucked into a pooter
And poured out of a glitter jar
To be bog-taxidermy. Star-gear joints.
The clattering bear-carriage
Wheeling out of a deep pool
on star-spurs.
III. Comparison
The briars are captivated
With the trapper’s rigor mortis
and remedy.
A nun, her head full of vespers
Is emptied there. Emptier now
Than a bee. The squirrel’s discards
From the canopy are sobering.
She is gone now
into the briar slalom, frugal
with her dreams.
They begrudged and disembowelled themselves
for her.
IV. Distraction
Any tree in another tree’s wood
Endears them to me.
A denizen of maple
in the smothered smoky yurt
under beech.
Practically underground.
The resumption after a tube.
The maple looking at
All its summer keys trodden on.
V. Petulance
I hoard my prayers
Like battered up wishes, crafted
Episodes. A glum boy
Holding a steadfast candle at fault.
The brambles are sliding open
for everyone. The bog is yielding.
VI. Bog-Fishing
The gardener
skirting the wall
like a bog angler
waters the fettered heaps
to drop her worm into.
If I stay here long enough
I might drive
Some nickel-tipped javelin
Into a star.
