Shearsman 62: Alan Baker: "The World Seen from the Air"

Shearsman 62

Alan Baker

The World Seen from the Air

To get used to the earth's edge
and pale vertigo is     to lose

something not altogether     but
the lights at night each little spark

and fugitive energy the evening sees
the cars like living things turned fossil

to fuel the night's decline the day's
displaced indifference

dusk, and the aircraft stack like geese
coasting in to land on a thawed lake     the snows

no longer, is a learned indiff erence, rather
an acceptance of the spread plains, the sea's

inscrutability, the cities studded
as far as we can see

(there's nowhere to rest my notebook)

to get used to the earth's pale edge
is something not altogether lost     as

(there's no where to rest)
it lights each little spark and fugitive energy

the evening sees the cars see
the living things turned fossil

to fuel the night's decline the day's indifference
dusk, and the aircraft stack like geese

the snows a learned indiff erence, rather
an acceptance as far as we can see

(there's nowhere to rest this…)

*

what is between us
    is, lacking certainty,
the bowl of sleep
    at least of
time shared, time imagined

leaves in the breeze and the glare
of a hazy day, churn of cold water
    guillemots, gannets,
nests, ledges in the glare of sea,
and others
    between us flight
a swift sleeps
on the wing

a bowl shared, time shared
flight imagined at the borders
and churn of ledges, rocks
in the glare of sealight

we have come this distance,
inland, a sparrow's flight,

a swift sleeps on the wind,
the air as earth to us, the earth

alien, and peopled with the strange,
incapable of speed and movement

or rest, and sky will enter in
our eyes, the wind our ears

as if we could master it only in
stillness, and that at best

or sky that will enter in
our eyes, and wind our teacher

the leaves in the haze of day,
cold water, breeze, a bowl

might mitigate the time spent
or imagined between us, sleep

a swift on the wing, or rest
might mitigate the cold

of earth, as alien, we have come
this distance, a sparrow's flight

peopled with the strange, leaves,
cold water, churning flight

*

Memory extends its current
in the late air,
diff erent shades for different
depths and directions

sedge, willow and alder, a pair of kingfishers,
blue jewels, quick,
sedge, willow and alder, a pair of blue jewels
like kingfishers your eyes

blow the wind southerly

*

a studied velocity
and wing flick
    turns a line to lift

these birds never alight
a life on the wing

and a perspective on life
all summer weave and call
feed nest
    from this vantage point the town and lake

the summer migrants and the herons
with the slow wing-beats
enclose

wherever humanly possible, an image
of the lilies of the field

(I should have been a bird)

the children lulled to sleep by their calls
their wills weakened, letting slip
the calls of evening

each leavetaking like the last, to rest,
migrants calling time on summer

wherever possible the practice will
continue, they are exemplars, some will say

wing-flick and slow beat, migrations
and sedentary populations

spread across the surface of the globe,
in transience, lulled to sleep, or woken

the calls of evening and the weave
of feeding, nesting, wave on wave

To leave your home and know
there's no returning

so many suffer such a fate,
so many, lulled to sleep,

perspective on life awake, right here, now,
no time to waste or weaken

*

(midnight)
each little spark and fugitive energy
the cars see the living things turned fossil

to fuel the night's decline, the day's
and the aircraft stacked like geese

the snows gone and a learned indiff erence,
rather an acceptance

*

Tracery of branches
brushed by south wind

A heron makes the sky a home

In continuous brush-stroke light
I cast my mind across a pool of answers
we may go fishing in later

*

Sedge and willow, alder, a pair of eyes
blue jewels, quick kingfishers,
a pair of blue jewels
sedge, willow and alder, your eyes

and a wind in the sedge

*

As if it were
    brush strokes
or streaks of cloud half-visible
in what we called vision
    but now know better...

as mind bends to perspectives,
brush strokes, sleep, slowly
to the hum of engines, the
earth, I take it, tentative, and
encompassed by sleep,
a vision of sorts

yet streaks of cloud known better
than the hum of engines
we need to talk, she said,
as the brush of sleep stroked
encompassed the bending vision,
    seas, the open shore, night

earth, I take it, tentative, and
encompassed by a vision of sorts

Alan Baker lives in Nottingham, England. He is managing editor of Leafe Press, assistant editor of Poetry Nottingham and editor of the arts and poetry webzine Litter. He has published two pamphlets, The Causeway (1999) and Not Bondi Beach (2002), both from Leafe Press.