Andy Brown

A Picture Story

I.
Not all things start or end with an idea:
things happen like a montage in a film

for so long, then one day we wake to find
our thoughts are up and out before us:

out there on the road between the trees
at the edge of the lake; out there in the world—

the ceaseless flow beyond our windowpanes
that shapes us to its needs— the complex drift

of grasses in the rides, the river's spine,
the crimson thrill of dogwood in the snow,

the wild-ness that emerges at the edge
of what we know or what we think we know . . .

 

II.
We only know these few things: this unplanned
appointment called 'a life'; the earth inside

the marrow of our bones; this prize beyond
our habits and beliefs; the fading ink

in the footnotes to our daydreams. For what
we seek in change is all the proof we need,

discovered where we least suspect to find it,
as we continue on our journey to and from

being. We're only guests, just passing through
and always come back here before the end,

along the forest path that brings us back
inside these bricks built round the central hearth:

 

III.
this common space beyond our small conception
where we are called to things and rooted in

witness: the scent of dust on radiators,
woodworms leaving flight holes in the dresser,

a deathwatch beetle knocking in the beam—
the threads that knit our dreams together,

making room for hope and trust and change;
these last stones in the walls of memory.

 

 

Copyright © Andy Brown, 2007.

Andy Brown lives in Exeter and teaches Creative Writing at the University of Exeter. His latest collection is Fall of the Rebel Angels, Poems 1996-2006 (Salt Publishing, 2006). A collaborative volume with John Burnside, Goose Music, appeared in 2008.