Meeting House

HOP GARDENS


Here where the convent
planted hops to rival Kent’s
and brewed their own dark beer,
a company of trees keeps watch
at high windows.
Their garden shadows
mingling, intimate
a saraband of centuries
or an old tango
from the slow Atlantic –

Now the Meeting House has
bells for several skills
and Saturday morning crafts:
electric urns for sacheed tea,
coffee or chocolate from a jar.
The bell the poets ring,
next to Buddhist Meditation,
is labelled, Tango Club: a wait
for poet - or meditator? – to let us in.

From the ceiling a hanging arc
lights up the central table
and, not quite falling on
our latest typed pages,
necessitates a leaning forward,
creates a closer gathering.
Sequins that cannot be sewn
colder than quartz & quicker
than the song of birds,
each different mind coheres
in a temporary fabric: glass leaves
collected to reflect and listen
as the one voice steps forward
to trounce the half light
with a flare.

Sat Chit Ananda

chocolate cup cakes


in delicate white
corrugated casing
right up to the icing

on a plate on a
table cloth in the
house of a friend

shoes left outside
so not to ruin
the clean beige carpet

or the strip
of parquet in the hall
so when we ran

and shouted or
dropped dead
shot by a colt 45

it was only our
clean socks sliding
on the polished ice-rink –

at the signal
hands washed for neat
paste sandwiches

no cake until
these savouries were gone
washed down with tea

and then of course
the giggles as the amber
tea cascaded

into china cups
as if from somewhere safe
where it had always been

until at last -
the cup cakes
first bite through smoothness

into crumb-
ling cakeness
and more to taste

as icing melted
on the tongue
munching sweetness

which led in time
to more giggling more
amber from the pot

tonight

Tonight

After a wintry August
to think I’m drinking this wine -

Let’s go to Oxford
set off early in the morn –
well, maybe, perhaps…


7/9/07