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6.

6. Melanie Challenger, May 18 2009

Body

The turf is an open secret, the swaying grass-
Tips the tattletales of every earthy movement.
These rumours of life’s aftermath through the green
Shoots below are unheard, unthinkable even
To those workaday gods in the shapeless atlas
Above. God, body’s so high now, its skull the grass-
Tops to the white pates of cloud that shunt
Their tempers across the lowness of city-life. “See?”
Asks body; “Look!” shrieks body;
The green-flash of sunset, the lucky sight of the few,
Grasses tremble by the jet, the ephemeral swamps of the new.

Soul

Soul is spirited. The hedgerow, the plot, the fen,
By this supernatural distance, re-establish an old
Intimacy. “Dear mundane! Dear common-or-garden!”
This dizzying break erases every pathway trodden,
Lights the abundance of turns not yet taken.
Each place unthinkingly known, now sweetly gone
Over. The recurring dream of the nest given
New lease of life so strangely far afield.
The swift mind a frenzy of possibilities with one
Swallow of regret for all the earthbound sees.