Peace Talks

by Andrew Motion

and introduce themselves.

  But they must have disembarked already,

  and I soon forgot them.

  I was concentrating now on the icebergs

  as they sailed past my window.

  The icebergs, and the whales

  that always let fly with a water-spout

  before they bent below the surface.

  The Fish in Australia

  Where the mountains crumbled

  and yellow desert began,

  when the sun began to smoulder

  in a vault of indigo,

  I left the metalled road

  and found a perfect circle

  of still and silent water

  fifty yards across,

  with hard treeless banks

  unmarked by any prints.

  Call it a pool of tears

  wept by dogs and kangaroos,

  or dead transported men.

  I considered it a dew pond

  but no dew anywhere

  ever fell that swarthy colour,

  or seemed so like the lid

  of a tunnel piercing through

  the planet’s fiery heart

  to the other side and England.

  Providence anyhow

  had made me think ahead

  and without a moment’s pause

  I was parked up on the bank,

  had my rod and spinner ready,

  and was flicking out a cast

  to find what rose to me.

  Nothing rose of course.

  A kookaburra guffawed

  a mile off in the bush

  and a million years ago;

  a snack of tiny flies

  sizzled round my lips;

  and as the dying sun

  sank deeper in its vault

  a gang of eucalypts

  in tattered party dresses

  seemed to shuffle closer

  and show their interest

  in hearing how my line

  whispered on the water

  (now uniformly solid

  ancient beaten bronze)

  how the reel’s neat click

  made the spinner plonk down,

  how the ratchet whirred

  as I reeled in slow enough

  to conjure up the monster

  that surely slept below.

  As I reeled in slow enough

  then suddenly too slow

  and the whirling hooks caught hold

  of something obstinate.

  Not flesh or fish-mouth though.

  Too much dead weight for that.

  A stone-age log perhaps.

  A mass at any rate

  that would not change its mind

  and snapped the flimsy line

  which blew back in my face

  as light as human hair.

  If not myself at least

  the pond lay peaceful then,

  with sun now turned to dust

  and a moon-ghost in its place

  as much like company

  as anything complete.

  Why not, I thought,

  why not

  despite the loss to me

  continue standing here

  and still cast out my line,

  my frail and useless lash,

  with no better reason now

  than to watch the thing lie down

  then lift and lie again,

  until such time arrives

  as the dark that swallowed up

  the sky has swallowed me.

  Swim

  We quarrelled over something

  I don’t remember

  and while you slept

  I tried to make good

  by mending a broken pipe

  under the bathroom sink.

  When I hit my head on the rim

  I decided to hell with it

  I’ll spend the afternoon

  taking a swim

  instead.

  And why not

  prove myself

  capable after all

  by ploughing across the harbour

  and back?

  Given that meant a mile

  and all manner of shipping

  including a liner

  recently in from Barcelona

  I had to strip off and go

  before I finished the question.

  Breast-stroke

  crawl

  breast-stroke

  then for a while

  floating

  getting my breath back

  until the liner

  set sail for Barcelona again

  which kept me treading water

  as long as the beast

  swung from the dockside

  out

  surprisingly quick and yet

  slow

  sloshing an oily ripple

  over my head as a joke

  before

  looming above me

  capped with faces shouting

  Look out!

  or

  Look!

  I was still treading water

  treading

  water but thinking

  it will be time soon

  to kick myself forward again

  what with the liner

  sliding away from me now

  juggling the world in its wake

  this way and that then

  shouldering off

  through the harbour mouth.

  Achille Lauro

  that was the name I saw.

  Achille Lauro.

  Wasn’t it

  captured by hijackers once

  didn’t they

  shoot what was his name

  Klinghoffer

  then tip him overboard

  out of his wheelchair?

  I could return to that I would

  later return to that but now

  I was halfway across only

  halfway across the harbour

  legs suddenly stringy

  breath

  short

  and still still a good way

  from starting the journey back.

  What had I ever been thinking?

  What had I

  not been thinking?

  You I thought

  you will never need know

  not if you

  never wake up.

  It could be still

  an afternoon like the others

  the lazy others we spend

  here on the island

  in Caprichosa in Cala Rata.

  I might really

  I might not remember

  how the enormous water

  opened beneath me

  how

  a liner

  had easily slipped straight over

  and through

  how I swam onwards a little

  rested

  then swam onwards again

  until it was all

  behind me

  all the silvery harbour

  catching the light of late afternoon

  and I was back here in our bedroom again

  still lying beside you.

  The Burning Car

  Back from our swim in Es Grau

  where nightingales

  sang from the pines

  and a heron

  ignored us priest

  at his priestlike task

  in the freshwater pool

  in Es Grau as I say

  the car caught fire.

  A jalopy

  but still on fire

  a smudge

  escaping the bonnet

  then feathers

  the instrument panel

  then flame

  the air-vents

  the radio glovebox

  the key in its slot

  and out

  we jumped out

  in the sun

  mesmerised though

  you could say mesmerised

  yes

  or baffled.

  What did the unive
rse need

  to explain?

  Did it think

  we were stupid?

  Well

  we might have been stupid

  or worse

  but at least

  we were taking no chances

  keeping our distance

  watching the tyres

  take hold

  the windscreen

  explode

  then fire in a hurry

  guzzling

  our damp front seats the basket

  my towel

  your red one headrests

  umbrella

  our map of the island sea holly

  sweet wrappers

  lolly sticks sand grains

  dust dust

  and your favourite hat

  darling that too

  amazing how fast

  how soon

  in something we thought

  could never be burned

  a car

  but was.

  The Notary

  For some reason

  were you

  selling your apartment

  for some reason

  we needed a notary

  so we uncoupled

  our holiday

  and set about finding one.

  The first step

  brought us down to the coast

  as morning broke over Ravello

  through a comedy of hairpins

  with our windows one minute

  scratched by savage brambles

  the next lit

  with a flash of the sea.

  But the notaries of Amalfi

  were closed

  or spoke no English

  so on a second bus

  we followed the coast road to Salerno

  still with a good idea

  we might find what we wanted.

  But the whole morning was now

  beauty thinning away

  vine terraces and marble stairs

  veering

  among lavender rocks

  and the other tourists

  disappearing as well

  dropping off

  at the good bathing spots

  or the last restaurant

  anyone had heard of

  until it was just us

  and the other silent ones

  who needed Salerno

  for their own business.

  No one acknowledged us

  and

  everyone followed the view

  religiously

  the mountains to our left

  with profiles of old warriors

  and patchworks of myrtle

  gradually shrinking

  as the pulses of lava that made them

  lost their vitality

  the sea to our right

  sprinkled with white fishing boats

  furrowed by one blue ferry

  and whipped briefly by a helicopter

  that buzzed alongside us for half a mile

  as if we were under surveillance

  or heading for danger.

  Then the sky was empty again

  the road ahead straight and flat

  and the music of our tyres

  playing over soft tarmac

  the sunlight zithering through the blinds

  the heat scented with petrol fumes

  that swept in

  through open windows

  were all peaceful enough

  all sleepy-making enough …

  One minute there was no Salerno

  the next there were dockyards

  a port suburbs a ring-road

  a hideous ramshackle overpass

  marina bridge dual carriageway

  the Centro with its wide avenue of pines

  and everything soaked through

  with a faint sour yellow

  version of

  colour-blindness.

  We stepped down

  at the last stop before the depot

  and silence swallowed us like a marsh.

  As it had swallowed already

  the first notary we tried

  and the next

  and the next

  all

  at a tiresome distance

  from one another

  on long streets flanked

  with glaring concrete

  where apart from a vagrant

  asleep on the veiny steps of a bank

  and a three-legged dog

  that made a point

  of hopping along

  the dead-centre of the road

  we saw no signs of life.

  The cathedral.

  Also locked.

  Then tuna salad and Peroni

  in a shaded courtyard

  with three metal tables.

  At one

  a white cat slept in the only chair.

  At the second

  a handsome Capuchin friar

  in brown habit and sandals

  took extremely careful sips of water

  while a woman much younger than himself

  leaned forward and murmured earnestly

  without a single interruption.

  The friar

  sometimes nodded

  and took another sip of water.

  At a different time

  at the third table

  we might have felt exhausted.

  Here we were reconciled.

  Perfectly content

  with each other which made us

  content as well with the confusion of things

  that had brought us here

  and spared us.

  We finished our meal.

  We wandered off

  and found our way

  to the dusty corner where

  our bus appeared like a miracle.

  With the sun behind us now

  and hills darkening as they swelled

  towards the mouth of their dead volcano

  and small fires

  unless they were spirals of mist

  twisting up from the valley floors

  we saw our own shadow

  crumpling against the corners

  long before we reached them

  and the distance to travel seemed much shorter

  or had already gone.

  The Mill

  Over the road

  and twice the size of the house we lived in

  five stories at least

  white clapboard

  wide as a barn.

  The cat reconnoitred.

  I followed the cat

  clambering

  this side or that

  of the mounting-block steps

  then ducking the sack

  that drooped like a sleepy eye

  almost to block the door

  and in.

  Darkness.

  Light.

  Shadows that

  jigged with bran-dust

  and wheat-dust

  and softened the pulleys

  the beams

  the ladder fading away

  towards this attic or that

  where the miller must be

  ignoring me

  on my porridgy floor.

  And hushed.

  But roaring in fact

  the dry

  continual

  biblical

  thunder

  of mill-wheels

  grinding together.

  Surely

  the heaviest weight in the world.

  Furious too

  with a fury of infinite patience.

  Where was I now?

  I’d forgotten.

  No no I remembered.

  Looking for something

  I was

  like the cat looking

  here between rows

  and rows of comfortable sacks

  like soldiers asleep.

  Looking for this

  perhaps

  this handful of grain in a gush

  overfl
owing my hands

  at a rickety funnel

  like money but free

  and precious priceless

  if only I caught it.

  Maybe not this.

  Maybe just wanting

  the doorway again

  what with the weight at my back

  the weight

  and darkness

  breathing and grinding.

  Look.

  Was that really my home there

  over the road?

  That acacia tree by the gate.

  That border of pinks.

  My mother’s face in a window pane

  like a bubble

  frozen in water.

  Surely again

  surely

  surely not mine.

  Besides

  I had turned into dust.

  White hands

  white clothes

  white hair.

  And next thing would float away

  through the white air.

  Wait

  When prayers are over

  I lie in the dark

  I wait

  my mother here

  on the slippery eiderdown

  her

  one hand smoothing my hair

  the other

  breathing Blue Fern

  from a wet dot on her wrist

  and it is time

  she says it is time to explain

  miracles really

  are not

  listen

  the Burning Bush

  it had oily leaves

  the Red Sea that was

  the tides yes

  and Jesus Jesus

  walking across the water

  ah

  but I know about that

  already I know because

  I have fooled my father

  already

  I have discovered

  this sandbar lying

  just under the surface

  all invisible

  and

  I have walked it already

  anyway

  wait

  wasn’t that now downstairs

  my father

  home before we expected

  me and my mother

  clearing his throat

  lifting up lids on the stove

  yes and always the same

  with him with him

  it is always time