by Laurie Lee
Skating the floor with stiffened plumes behind him,
Gravely off-balance, solemn in his trance.
Drunk on these sherry vapours, eyes akimbo,
He treads among the casks, makes a small leap,
Flaps wildly, fails to fly – until at last,
Folded umbrella-wise, he falls asleep.
So bird and bard exchange their spheres of pleasure:
He, from his high-roofed nest now levelled lies;
Whilst I, earth-tied, breathing these wines take wing
And float amazed across his feathered skies.
Fish and Water
A golden fish like a pint of wine
Rolls the sea undergreen,
Glassily balanced on the tide
Only the skin between.
Fish and the water lean together,
Separate and one,
Till a fatal flash of the instant sun
Lazily corkscrews down.
Did fish and water drink each other?
The reed leans there alone;
As we, who once drank each other’s breath,
Have emptied the air, and gone.
Seafront
Here like the maze of our bewilderment
the thorn-crowned wire spreads high along the shore,
and flowers with rust, and tears our common sun;
and where no paths of love may reach the sea
the shut sands wait deserted for the drowned.
On other islands similarly barbed
mankind lies self-imprisoned in his fear,
and watches through the black sights of a gun
the winging flocks of migratory birds
who cannot speak of freedom, yet are free.
