Lay for the Day
20th
October
1854: the poet Arthur Rimbaud is born in Charleville in the Ardennes.
Two Tigers by the Sea
At least we were safe there
And
kept warm in winter
But there’s no going home now.
The sea forms in long black
lips –
Winter’s
dog on our heels —
While we pad this grey beach
Bright as descended stars
Watching
the shore birds
Flock from the night
And fly south. This is a cold
Island,
and small as a birdcage.
Impossible to move silently
Over the sharp ice in gardens.
Tigers
are hardly indigenous
And the scent of sapphires that comes
On warm winds is untenable.
I have
seen something when I raise
The wide world of one foot
That I cannot say.
I have
seen it falling among the leaves
Of the holy forest.
John Gibbens
from Intimations
The
Lay Reader: an archive of the poetic calendar