9789176995860

a thirst graham bowers

Such silence then before us, pinned against the wall, Why need we whine? There is no way out, the birds Will tell us nothing more; we shall vanish ďŹ rst, Yet leave behind us certain frozen words Which some day, though not certainly, may melt And, for a moment or two, accentuate a thirst.

Louis MacNeice

© Graham Bowers 2017, 2019 First published 2017; 2nd edition 2019 All rights reserved Published by BoD – Books on Demand, Stockholm, Sweden Printed by BoD – Books on Demand, Norderstedt, Germany ISBN: 9789176995860

Contents Canada Geese From here Generally Wishful thinking Girl on Bike A Flurry Work The One Song Phnom Kulen Home and Away Museum "Clarity", he said Preparation Urban Nature Sycamore The Cenotaph Distance Stéphane and Django Grappelli Reinhardt Grappelli and Reinhardt Skin Types Parallel A Word Heaney Suite (i) Gårdlösa Stones (ii) Wintering in (iii) Dialect What is true (the centring weight) Johan and Leonard Her Song The Modern World – a Villanelle I Give

Reading history books, Implications Split Heron Clearance Iconoclasms (i) Haiku (ii) Lund Cathedral (iii) William and John Everything Life Science One, two, three, four, ďŹ ve When you're not here Uptake You and Me and Leonard C Moraines (pre-millennial silt...)

Tracers Unprotected So Many Times Untitled Winter light You and Me A Short Song Premises In praise of the Highland cow In the hasp Concealer Ewig ist der Augenblick Process

Chronicle

a thirst

Canada Geese As the morning haze thins off the late-autumn ďŹ eld the Canada Geese turn and stretch towards the low sun.

And I understand their need: Enter me, light and warmth!

From here From this slope I've scrambled up I see all the others on their slopes, the scree loose and shifting beneath us all as we ďŹ ght to keep our feet against the pull.

There is no open vista to admire, the pull means that we're constantly unsure of how to climb, why there's no level ground, and who the others are on either hand.

No point in waving or shouting: we all know for all our scrabbling there's just one way to go; the valley where we started out at dawn is where the pull will force us to return.