Your elbows on it, with a smile
that lingered while you watched
the car approaching
and relished the sound
of the gravel under the wheels,
the screeching and crunching underneath
wafted up enlightening the air,
joyful crushed matter enjoying
its neat rawness and its being there,
wheels getting nearer and nearer,
bit by tangible bit, the heart of the earth
in your room in the morning.
And on your bicycle you wanted
to imitate it, slowly,
pedalling, slow at the start,
your adventure at the departure,
the wheeling on a myriad of sparkles
whose shots you threaded one by one.
Garden.
Your mother's gaze came forward
when they drilled and found the water,
she with a full glass in her hand,
her fingers, her pupils, gently grasping
a marvel, -drink it- she said
and a radiance expanded,
you sensed the glow of transparency,
the indentures in the pattern of the glass
shone with a flash
of willing, unnamed depths.
You felt them spreading
sitting on the deckchair in the evenings,
the crickets broadening the plain
with the quiet rhythm of their chirping,
the familiar breathing of the unknown
boundaries of the grass,
your skin brushed by the land's
veins weaving.
Bedroom.
You walked up the stairs of light brown wood,
brushing the faded floral pattern
of the wallpaper, watching
the spotted immobility
of the wings of a moth,
dimly lit steps bathed in a rosy hue;
on top you walked outside
and heard along the balcony
the distances in the dark
filled with dogs' howling
that rose in arcs
and spread and fell down slowly,
you loved its appeased merging
in the night growing large.
In the bedroom the floorboards screeched,
same light brown wood, raw like the stairs',
they fed your steps with an all present air,
feet thumping and shuffling,
your shape a busy ghost
when the light was turned off;
in bed, criss-crossed by shadows
you listened to the house,
the branching breath of the beams
and a snoring blossoming
through the silence in the walls.
In the morning an enamel jug
and a large bowl were ready
on the marble board over the chest of drawers,
the jug the colour of milk, rich and smooth,
with a pattern of leaves on the handle,
simple neatness staring at you,
you poured the water
at one with its clear silence
and wet your face slowly
sensing the spotless smile
you would for ages
run after in the future,
the full purpose of the moment
being just right enough.
Kitchen
A flash of garden grass, tall and thick,
an immediacy of soil enlightening the windows,
while your memory of the floor is in a blur,
maybe it was solid dirt or gravel with concrete
but it's where you felt established on earth.
The whole family sat at the big round table
with on one side a huge cupboard, glossy
dark brown wood with lighter lines,
veins of marble winding in rich view,
on the other side the grandfather's clock
rooted on the spot, a solemn guardian
measuring time in its still gaze
on a light green-grey wall, time empty
and unknown, stretching in fields of plenty.
The time of luminous rustling afternoons
and noisy dinners with grandfather's smiles
and bouts of solar anger, the resin and bark
and raw soil of words, the sudden swearing
you were forbidden to imitate.
On the street side the room branched
into a narrow clattering scullery on the right
and on the left the hearth, a large
iron stove where “eyes” opened,
a million small doors where wood burnt
and around it a massive ring of stone,
you sat on a parapet which garlanded the wall,
your feet on the stone, there in the silence
you felt ensconced, able to travel on the cart
of the bustling earth's pulse.
Not much later, when you were
already in this future, you saw
flash after flash of pickaxe
and a heap of rubble where the ring was,
you would never know if grandfather
would have approved, you were gazing at
shards of stone and childhood,
earth to earth.