Mezzaluna - Michele Leggott Wesleyan Poetry Series

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      takeoff!

      The bird-men of Easter Island were egg thieves

      and so are we

      out in the orchard where the kids hunt what’s left

      of the chocolate cache

      among the dripping trees

      in cold spring

      I lie awake before sunrise

      even breathing and eyelid curves all around

      the crew is dreaming of crabmeat salads and exorbitant lamb

      and somehow

      a fantasm of island raspberries and double cream gets into the picture

      with a flourish of past summerings

      and the whiff of a biddable future (is it greed

      or appetite

      has us out wading the terraces again for the big red crabs

      basking on beds of gently waving sea-lettuce

      which turns a wistful eye on the great shells

      left by the ebb on the bottom of Ella Bay?

      a bed of grandaddy clams out there

      feasts and delicacies

      we come back for

      singling out

      making sense (and love

      of the things

      we find

      getting hungrier by the moment

      or maybe just sure of the victualling stops

      I’m happy I’m afraid

      Emily’s Sentinel looks out on the sea

      and that (improbable) arm has kept the blackbirders out

      the depopulators of small paradises

      the grid-men with their hands-on madness

      who have also covered the Pacific spaces (hold it right there

      and might one day come in close (don’t

      move a mussel

      to make us an offer we can’t refuse

      then say

      goodbye to the beloved junk the holidays out of cardboard boxes

      off weekend crockery

      in good company

      goodbye to the voyages the small paradises the bellying sail

      goodbye and would you let it happen

      just catch an early boat and never look back?

      Within the month we passed close to the island again

      put a glass on the bay and saw

      a flag snapping on the whitewood pole of the point

       hola!

      and the panorama moved right along so that next it was

      Roseland’s cabins vanishing

      into the leafed-over orchard

      so green so sunlit

      minimal kinetic glitter in the dancing glass

      and the same wind rolling the clouds back off heaven that night

      would have shown us the first of ten moons

      sliding up over the islands phasing in

      the time of our lives

      could have told us that love’s growing season

      was making another start

      a second heart begins to beat

      close to the first

      there will be a story

      darkening in the throat

      deeper at the edges (now)

       wind winds a wound

      things we used to do

      in this place

      not this time

      though

       winds wind

      the traveller returning, welcome

      and breath

      of hemispheric summers

      drudgery the clematis

      overlooks

      and star wistaria

      staring

      when you were young,

      honeysuckle

      there was always

      milk

      and that

      witloose trelliswork

      I was busy with

       wind

      words come so slowly

      it has been lonely

      a phoenix palm

      and behind it

      crystalline glitter

      another story, waving

      plantain paradisiaca a bird

      musey with waves

      Helicon a harbour cone

      here

      bright

      Greek

      over Narrowneck:

      head each I am

      sweet snow

      now

      kahili ginger

      on a jungle coast

      the space junk sails at will

      oh hello

      into abalone

      nacre no body

      embraces

      acheless or

      necklace

      wrack free

      breaks

      reckless

      that kissed

      detritus whist

      forsake and

      dance

      unsounded

      fortune on

       wild waves

      forsake and

      leviathan

      never

      look back

      at the smash

      nacreous

      deeps

      unless

      eyes crescent

      swimming

      ascent

      Just when you think you’ve made it

      out of the bosom

      you go back alone

      your child asleep in the back

      and the road is jammed with ghost Peugeots

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